DAMA SESHADRI NAIDU, J.

Introduction:

This Writ petition poses a familiar, oft-repeated question: can the Court judicially review an employee's transfer made on administrative grounds? The answer could have been plain. But this question has, plain as it seems, a different factual background. Before we attempt to answer the question of transfer, we ought to answer another question: Are the transferred employees under the administrative control of the authorities that transferred them?

2. The government has transferred a batch of employees- the Assistant professors-from one college to another. Yet the college from which the batch has been transferred is an autonomous institute. Though the transferred employees were recruited before the college became autonomous, they maintain that post-autonomy, the government has ceased to control them; so the order of transfer is ultra vires.

3. If the transferred employees are government servants, they may still question the transfer, though on limited grounds; but the forum changes. That is, they have an efficacious alternative remedy.

4. Now, therefore, we need to answer these questions:

(a) Are the petitioners, the transferred employees, th