IMPORTANT POINT
The main legal point established is that the rejection of a transfer application should be reasonable and in accordance with the law, and the interpretation of rules should be done in a manner that is socially beneficial.

JUDGMENT :

ABHIJIT GANGOPADHYAY, J.

1. This is a transfer application of the petitioner from her present school to another school. This is her 3rd application. First two applications, according to the petitioner, were rejected on grounds which are not tenable in the eye of law. The third rejection i.e. the present one which has been returned from the end of the Head of the Institution on two grounds: (i) Single teacher (ii) more than 10 percent of number of teachers.

2. The petitioner assails this decision by saying that she is not at all a single teacher and never was a single teacher and because of the school’s wrong notion, she was deprived of her transfer earlier. For the first time the School Service Commission returned her application as single teacher which was not at all the case. The petitioner’s case gets support from a report which has been filed by the District Inspector of Schools, Secondary Education (D.I. in short) in compliance of the direction of this court wherein in the concluding part of the report of the DI it has been written on (18.04.2022) that “the petitioner is really not a single teacher of the school in the subject English.”

3. Therefore, the petitioner is not a single teacher. Now the question is whether her application was beyond 10% of the total number of teachers.

4. When the petitioner applied for 3rd time on 08.10.2021, there were 15 teachers in the school. Now a question is raised by the learned advocate Mr. Jana, appearing for the School that the 10% of total member of teachers is to be counted from the very beginning i.e. starting point of Utsashree Portal. And therefore the petitioner is hit by Rule 6 (2) (d) of 2015 transfer Rules as amended and cannot be transferred.

5. Learned advocate for the petitioner contended that 10% of teaching staff cannot be counted from the beginning of the Utsashree Portal. The total number of teachers is to be considered with reference to the date of the application of the teacher whose application is being considered by the school or by the DI or by the SSC or by the court as the situation may be. Otherwise, for this 10 percent Rule a large number of teachers who want to be transferred will not get any benefit of transfer may be in their whole service period and the 10 % Rule would become meaningless. For example, if a school has 50 teachers on date of starting of Utshashree Portal and 10% of total strength of teacher i.e. 5 teachers are transferred then unless the school gets 5 teachers again the remaining teachers of the school will not get opportunity to apply for transfer. The school may go to the full strength of 50 by not before 4/5 years which is not unusual and therefore in this 4/5 years the remaining teachers would not get any opportunity of transfer. This cannot be the intention of the rule makers. The 10% Rule is to be given, according to him, a reasonable meaning keeping in mind its social beneficial nature and the reasonable meaning of the Rule can be given only if it is held that the 10% is to be counted (10 % of total teachers in a school) on the date of accrual of right of a teacher of that school who wants to be transferred and transfer of no other teacher in the school at any other point of time in the past is to be considered.

6. Now, from the case of the petitioner it is found, which is an admitted position, when the petitioner applied for transfer in the month of October, 2021 there were 15 teachers in the school. Therefore, the school could have considered transfer of two teachers (10% of 15 teachers being 1.5) at that point of time. Apart from the petitioner another teacher of subject History applied for transfer. Though the school could forward two teachers’ applications at that point of time the school did not forward the application of the petitioner though it forwarded the application of the other teacher. Thus the petitioner has been again deprived of transfer.

7. I find that if we give a meaning to this 10% Rule, according to the submi