Smt. Nirmala Devi vs The Punjab Scheduled Castes Land Development and Finance Corporation and Another

Amarjeet Chaudhary, J.—Two writ petitions being Nos. 4872 and 4873 of 11988 are being disposed of by a Single order as the question of law and facts involved in these petitions in the same,

Petitioner, Smt. Nirmala Devi was appointed by respondent No I as a Clerk on ad hoc basis on 1-4-1986 According to her, respondent No. 2. Shri R K. Jain took over as Executive Director in the Corporation-respondent No. 1 and with an intent to accommodate his own persons by appointing them as Clerks, started terminating the services of ad hoc Clerks. The services of the petitioner were also terminated who by means of a writ approached this Court and got stay orders against that termination The case of the petitioner is that having faild in the legal battle, respondent No. 2 adopted another method and transferred the petitioner from Chandigarh to Ludhiana. A specific allegation of mala fide has been alleged by the petitioner against respondent No. 2, All these allegations were emphatically denied by the respondents in their written statement.

The transfer of an employee from one place to another is purely an administrative matter. The transferring authorities are well within their right to make transfer of any employee in the interest of work and administration and normally a transfer order cannot be challenged in Court unless it is made with a mala fide intention to put a person in a state of trouble, or the mala fide is alleged on some valid grounds.

In the present case, the grievance of the petitioner is that she has been transferred to Ludhiana. Just to put pressure on her to leave the job. The transfer is an essential ingredient of service of a Govern- ment employee and normally a transfer order is not amendable to challenge and the court does not interfere in the matter if the transfer order is otherwise made on administrative grounds. Moreover, the allegations set up by the petitioner have been categorically denied and it was not the petitioner alone rather 26 more persons were transferred along with the petitioner to different places. Even otherwise, the counsel for the respondents stated at the Bar that Shri R. K. Jain. Executive Director-respondent No. 2 has already been transferred. In view of this Shri K. L. Arora, learned counsel for the petitioner has withdrawn the allegations of mala fide attributed to respondent No. 2. Not with- standing the above situation, keeping the circumstances of the petitioners in both the petitions that were created after their transfer in view, it is hoped that the Executive Director of the respondent-Corporation shall consider the request of the petitioners for their transfer and it will be approached if they are adjusted at Chandigarh itself. With the aforesaid observations, the writ petitions are disposed of with no order as to costs.