Baidyanath Mahto vs The State of Bihar and Others

Heard learned counsel for the petitioner. While setting aside both the orders of transfer, issued simultaneously by the two different State officials in their purported exercise of power in the capacity of being the cadre controlling authority of the writ petitioner, who is Respondent No. 5 herein, whereby and under the writ petitioner had been transferred at two different places at the same time putting him in a fix to comply which of the two orders of transfer, the learned Single Judge holding that such frivolous litigations are created by the State-respondents and thereby the Court is unnecessarily burdened imposed the costs of Rs. 50,000/- on the State with the liberty upon it to hold an enquiry and find out as to who is the competent authority to pass an order of transfer and then to recover the costs imposed by the Court from the salary of the erring official, who has acted beyond his jurisdiction and erroneously passed the order of transfer of the writ petitioner.

On the facts and in circumstances of the case as also considering the bona fide mistakes on the part of the State officials with regard to the authority for issuance of the orders of transfer, as set out in this appeal, we set aside the costs of Rs. 50,000/- imposed by the learned Single Judge to be recovered from the erring officials and deposited with the Patna High Court Legal Services Committee while passing the impugned order dated 5.9.2008.

However, it is made clear that we are not interfering with the other part of the impugned order dated 5.9.2008. The appeal is allowed in part.