Service transfers accommodating others' requests, disturbing short seven-month tenure without public interest or exigency, are arbitrary and mala fide, violating Articles 14 and 16; employees entitled to legitimate expectation of reasonable tenure.

JUDGMENT :

Ajay Mohan Goel, J.

Reply stands filed by respondents No.1 and 2. No reply is intended to be filed by respondents No.3 and 4. Learned Counsel for the petitioner submits that no rejoinder is intended to be to the reply filed by respondents No.1 and 2.

2. Heard. By way of this petition, the petitioner has assailed impugned transfer order dated 09.12.2025, in terms whereof, the petitioner has been transferred from SMS (Horticulture), Rampur (Rampur, Nankhari Blocks), District Shimla, to SMS (Horticulture) Dodra Kwar, District Shimla, in place of respondent Shri Kushal Singh.

3. Learned Counsel for the petitioner argued that the impugned transfer order is per se bad, for the reason that the petitioner was transferred to Rampur from Rohru seven months prior to the issuance of the impugned transfer order. Learned Counsel further submitted that before his transfer to Rampur, the petitioner had served at Rohru for a normal tenure of three years and, therefore, he was expecting that he shall be allowed a reasonable tenure at Rampur, but by virtue of the impugned transfer order, he has again been disturbed just after seven months and that too, without any justifiable reason. Learned Counsel also argued that the impugned transfer order is nothing, but an act of coularable exercise of power, which is evident from the fact that the private respondents have been transferred without TTA, meaning thereby that they have been transferred on their request. He, thus, submitted that it is not a transfer which is either on account of any administrative exigency or in public interest, but is an arbitrary exercise of power and, accordingly, he prayed that the impugned transfer order be set aside. He further submitted that the impugned transfer otherwise is a result of D.O. Note.

4. On the other hand, learned Deputy Advocate General argued that transfer of the petitioner was effected in public interest with the approval of the Competent Authority, in condonation of a short stay. He also argued that the petitioner being a Class-I employee, is not protected by the Transfer Policy and it is not as if there is any guarantee of a tenure of three years, as is being proclaimed by the petitioner. Accordingly, he argued that as the transfer order was passed in public interest and on account of administrative exigency, the same does not calls for any interference.

5. Learned Counsel appearing for the private respondents has adopted the arguments addressed by learned Deputy Advocate General.

6. I have heard learned Counsel for the petitioner as also learned Deputy Advocate General and learned Counsel for the private respondents and have also carefully gone through the petition as well as reply and the documents appended therewith.

7. It is not in dispute that the petitioner was transferred to Rampur just seven months prior to the issuance of the impugned transfer order, in terms whereof, he has been transferred from his present place of posting to SMS (Horticulture), Dodra Kwar, which besides being a difficult area, is also at a distance of about about 200 kilometers from his present place of posting. It is also not in dispute that before his transfer to Rampur, the petitioner was serving at Rohru and distance between Rohru and Rampur is about 100 kilometers. Though, it is the stand of the State that transfer of the petitioner is in public interest and is in condonation of a short stay with the approval of the Competent Authority, but what that public interest is, has not been spelled out either in the reply or the transfer order