ORDER : 1. Petitioner, who has put in a long and spotless public service and who is shortly going to retire by superannuation on 30.04.2022, is knocking at the doors of Writ Court for assailing the order dated 10.03.2021 (Annexure-C) whereby the Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal (hereinafter ‘Tribunal’) has negatived his challenge to the transfer order dated 08.01.2021 (Annexure-A3) in Application No. 10044/2021; petitioner has also laid a challenge to the subsequent order dated 21.01.2021 (Annexure-A7) in companion Application No. 10120/2021 whereby the private respondent Mr. Mohammed Zubair, the Registrar of a University has been granted additional charge of the post to which petitioner was transferred. 2. After service of notice, the respondent-State and its Officials are represented by learned Government Advocate; the respondent Mr. Mohammed Zubair is represented by the private counsel. 3. Brief facts: (a) Petitioner, then a Tahasildar Grade-I, at Savanur Taluka was displaced without posting in February 2020 for about eleven months; fortunately, the DPC having cleared his name, he came to be promoted to the cadre of KAS (Junior Grade) with retrospective effect from 27.11.2020 in the Pay Scale of Rs. 56,800-99,600 vide Notification dated 06.01.2021 and he came to be transferred and posted as Special Land Acquisition Officer, KIADB, Dharwad against the existing vacancy in the post in question; he assumed charge of this post on 07.01.2021. (b) Within two days of issuance of the above Transfer Order and within one day of assumption of charge by the petitioner, he was transferred as Deputy Commissioner (Revenue), Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation vide Notification dated 08.01.2021; petitioner filed Application No. 10044/2021 challenging this; subsequently, Government made one more order on 21.01.2021 whereby the private respondent Mr. Mohammed Zubair the Registrar of a University was given additional charge of petitioner’s post; therefore, he filed Application No. 10120/2021 impugning the same; the challenge is founded inter-alia on the grounds of cutting short the minimum retention period, violation of service condition, arbitrariness and legal mala-fide and his proximity to retirement. Mohammed Zubair the Registrar of a University was given additional charge of petitioner’s post; therefore, he filed Application No. 10120/2021 impugning the same; the challenge is founded inter-alia on the grounds of cutting short the minimum retention period, violation of service condition, arbitrariness and legal mala-fide and his proximity to retirement. (c) The Government and the private respondent resisted the above Applications contending that the second transfer order is only a modification of the posting order; after all, modification is done within two days and thus, there is no prejudice; in any event, transfer is not a condition of service and therefore, an employee cannot have grievance against the same; it is for the government to decide where to deploy its personnel and therefore, petitioner’s challenge is unworthy of consideration. (d) The Tribunal denied relief to the petitioner mainly for the reason that: transfer is not a condition of service; after all, transfer is made within a short period of two days and therefore, there is no prejudice; it is the prerogative of the Government to transfer and deploy its employees in its wisdom; petitioner assumed charge in the transferred place without a Movement Order; the Tribunal having dismissed both the Applications, petitioner has presented a set of two writ petitions. 4. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties and having perused the petition papers, we are inclined to grant indulgence in the matter for the following reasons: (a) Petitioner was working as Tahsildar Grade-I at Savanur; he has put in a long and spotless service, is not in dispute; since February 2020, he having been displaced by another official, has been waiting for posting; petitioner earned promotion to the cadre of KAS with effect from 27.11.2020; he has obeyed all other earlier transfer orders, is evident from record; he is going to retire on 30.04.2022; thus, now he has a short stint of service of about ten months; that being the position, the act of the State Government in again transferring him to some other place within two days of transfer and one day of assumption of charge at the transferred place falls short of professed fairness standards and therefore is liable to voided; our Constitution enjoins the State Government and its Agencies to conduct themselves as Model Employer; this duty appears to have been lost sight of by the quarters that be. (b) Petitioner was without a posting after his displacement vide Notification dated 16.01.2020, one Mr. Mallikarjun Hegannavar having been posted to his place at Savanur; no explanation is offered for keeping him without posting for such a long period; this is un understandable, to say the least; on promotion to the cadre of KAS, he was posted as a Special Land Acquisition Officer, KIADB, Dharwad, vide Notification dated 06.01.2021; admittedly, he took charge on 07.01.2021 in absentia the incumbent; on 08.01.2021, he is retransferred as Deputy Commissioner (Revenue), Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation; the ink of earlier transfer order had not even dried and the new posting is made; what bolt from the blue had struck, warranting his immediate reposting, remains as a riddle wrapped in enigma; in a fairly open governance, enigmatic actions run the risk of invalidation. (c) Strange it sounds that after assumption of charge at the transferred place, petitioner is sought to be dislodged by the impugned Government Notification dated 08.01.2021 by posting him elsewhere and the additional charge of this post is given to the respondent Mr. Mohammed Zubair who is holding the Office of Registrar of a University having been so appointed under Section 17 of the Karnataka State Universities Act, 2000; this Section states “the Registrar shall be a whole-time Officer of the University.....” once so appointed, he has to function in such a way that the autonomy of the University is not compromised and that the University or its functionaries are not treated as a department of the State Government; consistent with this view coupled with enormity of statutory duties resting on this Office, no additional charge of some other post in the Governmental Hierarchy can be given to the Registrar of a University; had the additional charge was given to someone else, considerations would have been different. (d) There is yet another reason as to why the Government ought not to have given additional charge of the post of SLAO to the Registrar of a University; the provisions of Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Act, 1966, unmistakably show the onerous statutory duties attached to this Office which plays a pivotal role in the acquisition of land for industrial area development in the State; the SLAO has to function as a quasi-judicial authority as well under the scheme of the Act; in B.N. Dothrad vs. The Board of Directors, ILR 2006 Kar. 3163 it has been held that an official who holds only additional or independent charge of a statutory post/office, cannot discharge the public functions attached to the said post or office; that being the position, additional charge could not have been given to the private respondent, who strangely opposed the case of petitioner before the Tribunal and before this Court too, by engaging a counsel; this is not a happy thing to happen. (e) The contention of learned Government Advocate that it is employer’s prerogative to deploy his work-force as to sub-serve the public interest exigencies of administration and therefore, judicial acts done in scrutiny of exercise of such prerogative is not desirable, is bit difficult to sustain; our Constitution envisages a Welfare State and not an entity like the East India Company of bygone era; the Government should treat its employees with due deference; it has to keep in mind the likely heartburn which the employees who are going to shortly retire would have if they are repeatedly or abruptly displaced without plausible explanation; it is not the case of Government that the petitioner is incompetent, unsuitable or otherwise undesirable for the post of SLAO; therefore, keeping the vacancy in the said post intact, petitioner could not have been driven to some other place, unceremoniously. (f) The vehement contention of learned advocates appearing for the respondents that transfer is not a condition of service and therefore, displacement of employees does not give rise to a cause of action is, ordinarily true; however, a Full Bench of this Court in S.N. Gangadharaiah vs. State of Karnataka, ILR 2015 Kar. (f) The vehement contention of learned advocates appearing for the respondents that transfer is not a condition of service and therefore, displacement of employees does not give rise to a cause of action is, ordinarily true; however, a Full Bench of this Court in S.N. Gangadharaiah vs. State of Karnataka, ILR 2015 Kar. 1955 has held that no government employee can be transferred before he completes the minimum period of retention as prescribed in Government Order dated 07.06.2013; this is held to have statutory force and therefore, it’s infraction is justiciable; the Bench went a step further in observing “...posting of a government servant from one headquarters to another or from one office to another within the same headquarters for taking up duties of a new post, also amounts to transfer” therefore, the short distance between the twin cities of Hubli-Dharwad or between the two offices in the same cities pales into insignificance when the binding Guidelines of Transfer promulgated by 2013 Order are violated; whether transfer is made within a very short period and therefore, will not amount to prejudice, is also equally untenable; it is more so, when the petitioner has got a short stint of service i.e. ten months since his retirement date is 30.04.2022. (g) The rulings heavily relied upon by the learned Government Advocate i.e. Deepak Niranjan Case (2020) 3 SCC 404 and Rajendra Singh (2009) 15 SCC 178 that leave a greater leverage with the Government in matters of transfer of its employees do not much come to his rescue since the service rules applicable to the parties in those cases were different from those obtaining in the State of Karnataka; it hardly needs to be stated that the conditions of service of government employees are governed by the Service Rules promulgated by the respective States and therefore, the rulings that are structured on a different legal regime as is the case herein, cannot be much banked upon in support of the propositions that are pressed into service by the respondents. (h) The vehement contention of the learned State Counsel that petitioner assumed the charge of the Office of the SLAO pursuant to Notification dated 06.01.2021 sans a Movement Order and therefore, he could not have laid challenge to the said Notification is bit difficult to countenance in view of the Government Circular dated 24.10.2019 (Annexure-D) which dispenses with such a requirement; in S.V. Venkatesh Murthy vs. KSFIC, ILR 1999 Kar. SN No. 26, a Co-ordinate Bench of this Court observed that not obeying the transfer order issued by the employer is a misconduct and dismissal from service on that ground is justifiable; what fault one can lay at the threshold of an employee whose conduct is consistent with the law declared, is difficult to discern from the case at hands; no binding rule is cited to the effect that reporting for duty at transferred place without a Movement Order is a misconduct law and therefore, assumption of charge itself becomes illegal or cannot be taken note of. 5. In the above circumstances, these writ petitions succeed; a Writ of Certiorari issues quashing the Tribunal’s order dated 10.03.2021 made in Application Nos. 10044/2021 and 10120/2021; a Writ of Certiorari also issues quashing the transfer notifications dated 08.01.2021 and 21.01.2021, coupled with a direction to continue the petitioner as Special Land Acquisition Officer, KIADB, Dharwad, in terms of the transfer Notification dated 06.01.2021 within two weeks, if already not done. 6. Costs reluctantly made easy.