( 1 ) THE appellant before the Court was the plaintiff in Civil Suit No. 156 of 1977 which was dismissed by the learned Civil Judge (Senior Division) Jamnagar by his judgment dated 20-12-1979. It was the plaintiffs case that from 25-6-1961 he was appointed as an Art Master at Kunjpura Sainik School by the Principal of the School who is the appointing authority. The appellant worked as an Art Master upto 31 when he was transferred from Kunjpura Sainik School to Balachadi. According to the appellant-plaintiff the said order of transfer was passed by way of punishment on the basis of adverse remarks which were never shown to him. The said order was passed in violation of Rules of natural justice and the appellant was singled out for a discriminatory treatment as he was not palatable to the management at Kunjpura. He therefore challenged the said order of transfer as being mala fide and arbitrary and having been passed in violation of rules of natural justice; that it was in the nature of a penalty and hence null and void. According to him as per the terms and con- ditions of service his appointment at Kunjpura was on an unit basis and there was no exigency for such transfer. He therefore filed a suit and prayed that it be declared that the said order of transfer was illegal void ultra vires and springing from malafides and against the terms and conditions of service. As a consequential relief he prayed that he be once again transferred to his parent institution namely Sainik School Kunjpur Karnal. Certain ancillary reliefs by way of damages were also claimed. The respondents resisted the suit on various ground vide written statement Ex. 58 They denied that the said order was springing from any malafides. They also challenged the jurisdiction of the court at Jamnagar. They further denied that the plaintiff was appointed only to serve at Kunjpur and that Sainik School Society is having many schools all over India and the plaintiff was transferable to any of the schools run by the Sainik School society. They maintained that the order of transfer was passed for reasons of administrative exigency. They there- fore prayed that the suit be dismissed.

( 2 ) THE learned Civil Judge (S. D.) Jamnagar after recording evidence of the plaintiff dismissed the suit and hence the appellant-plaintiff has carried the matter before this Court by way of this first appeal.

( 3 ) MR. J. R. Nanavati the learned Advocate appearing for the appellant-plaintiff assailed the judgment on numerous grounds and three main contentions that Mr. Nanavati raised are as under: (1) Transfer order Ex. 95 was by way of penalty because it is directly related to the alleged misconduct of the plaintiff; (2) That the transfer of teachers serving in Sainik School not being a regular feature and the appellant-plaintiff being the only man so transferred the transfer order is discriminatory and not spri- nging from any administrative exigency as alleged by the respondents. (3) The Sainik school society though registered under the Societies Registration Act as a society is entirely managed by the agency of the State namely Defence Forces and hence the management of the society was expected to be reasonable and it is not purely a relationship of master and servant between the society and the appellant.

( 4 ) MR. B. K. Amin the learned Advocate appearing for the respon- dents Nos. 3 and 4 and Mr. S. J. Joshi the learned Advocate appearing for Respondent Nos. 1 and 2 urged that the (1) Sainik School is not equivalent to Government and the relation between the appellant and the respondent Society is that of only of master and servant and hence a declaration of the type sought for by the appellant cannot be granted. (2) Rules of service provides for the transfer and transfer being an inci- dence of service it cannot be questioned in a court of law.

( 5 ) IN order to appreciate the rival contentions it will be necessary to refer to the short history of the facts lead