The court established that offering a new employment contract after the previous one ended cannot be considered a transfer requiring specific lawful justification.

JUDGMENT :

NIRZAR S. DESAI, J.

1. By way of the present petition, the petitioner has challenged the order dated 31.12.2025 passed by the State Project Engineer, Gujarat Council of School Education, Vidhya Samiksha Kendra, Gandhinagar whereby upon completion of petitioner’s old contract, the petitioner was offered a new contract as TRP, Padra, Dist. Vadodara instead of petitioner’s earlier place of working as per old contract which had already lived its life as TRP, Mahemdabad. The petitioner has also prayed for quashing and setting aside the order dated 21.1.2026 whereby the petitioner was relieved from Mahemdabad, Kheda zone by respondent No.3.

2. At the outset, learned advocate Mr. Ashutosh Dave appearing for the petitioner submitted that though it is a well settled law that transfer is an incident of service, looking to the peculiar facts of the case, the present petition is required to be entertained. According to Mr. Dave, the petitioner was appointed as Civil Engineer on contractual basis under Sarva Sikshan Abhiyan on 4.2.2010 and he was posted at various places. Every time, upon completion of petitioner’s contract, new contract used to be offered to the petitioner in a different District and the petitioner had already served in various districts. But this fact must end at some day and, therefore, when the petitioner was offered new contract at Padra, Dist. Vadodara vide order dated 3.1.12.2025, the petitioner has challenged the same by way of this petition. Mr. Dave further submitted that the petitioner has already been relieved from his duty as TRP, Mahemdabad vide order dated 21.1.2026 and, therefore, that order is also required to be quashed and the petitioner is required to be offered a new contract as TRP, Mahemdabad.

3. Mr. Dave also relied upon terms of the contract which was first time offered to the petitioner in the year 2010 and pointed out that terms do not state anything about the fact that the nature of the job of the petitioner would be a transferable job and, therefore, the petitioner’s transfer cannot be said to have been made legally or for any justifiable reason in absence of there being any specific clause about the fact that the nature of the petitioner’s job is transferable job.

4. In support of his submissions, Mr. Dave relied upon the decision of the coordinate Bench of this Court in the case of Vegada Varsha Revashankar (Supra) v. State of Gujarat and others, delivered on 5.8.2015 in Special Civil Application No.12419 of 2015 wherein while allowing the petition and quashing and setting aside the impugned order of transfer, the coordinate Bench directed the State to re-transfer the petitioner to the place where she was earlier appointed after being selected to the post of Deputy Mamlatdar. Mr. Dave also relied upon paragraph 3 of the said decision which is based on a decision dated 11.6.2015 passed in Special Civil Application No.9191 of 2015 wherein in paragraph 15, the coordinate Bench observed that as the petitioner while having been offered a contractual job had no option but agree to the appointment on contractual basis on fixed pay. The petitioners, therefore, were left with no choice but to compromise and work on a fixed pay basis for a pittance, without any other benefits associated with the Government services. Mr. Dave further submitted that in that case also, as the transfer was not done as per the ratio of 3 : 1 between the promotees and direct recruits, considering the totality of the facts and circumstances of the case, the coordinate Bench of this Court had quashed the order of transfer and ordered to re-transfer the said petitioner.

Except the above submission and decision, no other submission/deci