An employer has the right to transfer employees for administrative reasons, but a transfer can be challenged if it is made otherwise than in public interest or for no administrative reasons and in the circumstances amounting to punishment or with mala fide intentions.

1. In this writ petition I am called upon to decide the question whether the transfer of the petitioner by the Coir Board was in the exigencies of service or was for other reasons. The task is none too pleasant. I tried my best to persuade the counsel for the Coir Board to arrive at a satisfactory adjustment so that I could dispose of the writ petition without considering the rival contentions on merits I wanted a consensual order if possible in view of the fact that the petitioner bad continued at Ernakulam till now in spite of the transfer order dated 3131975 and since the ground urged for Ext. P-3 transfer is no longer available. The transfer was necessitated as a Clerk in the Bombay Office went on leave for 45 days. She has now jointed duty. Therefore, the need to fill up the vacancy and the administrative reason urged is support of Ext. P-3 no longer exists. However, the counsel for the Coir Board was not amenable to this suggestion. His apprehension was that the cancellation of Ext. P-3 transfer order might be indirectly interpreted to mean that the Coir Board had no power to transfer its employees. I made it clear that no one disputed the power of an employer to transfer his employees for administrative reasons and a transfer could be called in question in a Court of law only when there was strong evidence in support of the mala fide plea. I have to decide the case on merits, since no agreed order can be passed.

2. The petitioner's case of mala fides has been projected in his petition and in the reply affidavit against the background of along history of victimisation by the then Chairman and the Secretary of the Coir Board of employees who, according to the petitioner, were not submissive to them. I shall simply state the facts on which the allegations of mala tides is sought to be built up.

3. The petitioner is a Lower Division Clerk in the Coir Board at Ernakulam. He joined service on 27 5 1968 and has been working in the Head Office of the Coir Board at Ernakulam. There are more than 200 employees in the Coir Board. The Coir Board Staff Association was founded in the year 1967. This Association was granted recognition by the Board on 8th July, 1968. The petitioner was the Treasurer of the Association when the writ petition was filed. The petitioner, according to him, has been an active participant in the affairs of the Association. (The averment that he has been so ever since the inception cannot be true because he joined service only in 1968 while the Association was founded in 1967). The 2nd respondent, present Secretary of the Coir Board, assumed office in 1968 and the Chairman in May, 1971. The Association wanted the Board to frame rules regulating the conditions of service of the employees of the Board so as to safeguard their interests. It is averred in the petition that this attempt of the Association led to unhappy relationship between the Association and the 2nd respondent and the 2nd respondent even tried to split the Association. The 2nd respondent is alleged to have taken the petitioner to task in October, 1972 when be was the Joint Secretary of the Association for having used the Coir Board premises for the purpose of the Association. As a consequence of this, the then Secretary of the Association wrote Ext. P-1 letter to the 2nd respondent (The receipt of Ext. P-1 is admitted by the 2nd respondent. No reply was sent since it did not merit a reply). Permission was refused by the 2nd respondent to the Association to hold its meeting within the Coir Board premises. This was strongly resented by the Association in its resolution dated 4121972 It is alleged that the 2nd respondent, thereafter, started a war of attrition against those persons with whom he fell foul. Even the founder-President of the Association Sri. P.K. Balakrishnan and the then President Shri. R. Bhaskaran Pillai were suspended on 8th February, 1973. The suspension was on the ground that they had abused one Sri M. P. Paul, another