The main legal point established in the judgment is that transfer is an exigency of service, but if it is established to be mala fide or contrary to a statutory provision, the court may interfere. The judgment also emphasizes the importance of preventing sexual harassment at the workplace and ensuring fair treatment of employees.

JUDGMENT :

D.Y. CHANDRACHUD, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. A senior officer of a public sector banking institution complains that her reports about irregularities and corruption at her branch and her complaints against an officer who sexually harassed her met with an order of transfer. The case involves the intersection of service law with fundamental constitutional precepts about the dignity of a woman at her workplace.

3. This appeal arises from a judgment of a Division Bench of the Indore Bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh dated 18 March 2019 in a Writ Appeal arising out of an order of the learned Single Judge dated 11 February 2019.

4. The respondent was appointed as a Probationary Officer of the Punjab and Sind Bank, the first appellant, on 8 October 1998 in Junior Management Grade Scale I. She was promoted to the post of Chief Manager in Scale IV. On 2 September 2011, the respondent was transferred to the Zonal Office at Mumbai. On 7 October 2011, she was transferred to the Branch Office at Indore. In September 2016, the first respondent was promoted to the post of Chief Manager in Scale IV. On 23 September 2016, the competent authority of the bank decided to continue her at the branch in Indore upon promotion. On 11 December 2017, the respondent was transferred from the Branch Office at Indore to the Branch Office at Sarsawa in the district of Jabalpur. Intimation of the transfer was furnished to her on 14 December 2017. On 31 January 2018, the respondent submitted a representation to the Zonal Manager, recording a reference to the circulars of the bank governing the posting of women officers. She made a request for being retained at Indore. Following the earlier representation, she submitted a reminder on 15 February 2018 and a representation on 19 February 2018 to the Executive Director of the bank.

5. In the course of her representations, the respondent submitted that during the course of the previous two years, she had, as a Branch Manager, inquired into the concentration of accounts maintained by liquor contractors at the branch and had detected grave irregularities which were hazardous to the interest of the bank. The respondent had submitted a detailed report to the Zonal Manager, Bhopal on 31 December 2016. In her report, she made several observations about lapses such as the existence of duplicate Bank Guarantee registers. She had recorded that the registers were not identical and some entries are missing from the new register. She observed that limits were sanctioned to parties not having any connection to Indore for the execution of liquor contracts. The Respondent’s grievance was that instead of taking steps to rectify the irregularities, she was being pressurized to cover up the misdemeanors at the level of the branch. Moreover, she alleged that this was compounded by the Zonal Manager (who was named) calling her at late hours at home to discuss business which was not of urgent nature. The respondent made a specific allegation against the Zonal Manager. For the purpose of the present proceedings, it would be necessary to extract from the representation which was submitted by the respondent to the Executive Director. It reads thus:

“I was surprised to observe that within a span of last 2 years during my predecessor time many accounts of liquor contractors had shifted to this branch from local branches as well as from far off places in UP. Many accounts of newly floated firms were opened and fresh limits of substantial amounts were sanctioned in a very haphazard manner, where even KYC norms were not followed. In a very short time concentration of liquor accounts had reached to such a high level that created a suspicion. When I started analyzing these accounts as per banking norms, I found many grave irregularities hazardous to the interest of the Bank. Furthermore, high value BGs were issued where copies of suc