Transfer of government servants is a condition of service and an incident of service, and does not alter the terms and conditions of service. The legality of transfer is amenable to challenge only on specific grounds such as malafide or being contrary to the provisions of law.

1. Instant writ petition has been filed praying for the issuance of a writ of certiorari to quash Order No.194-Edu of 2016 dated 30.05.2016, inasmuch as, the same pertains to the petitioners ; to issue a writ of mandamus to allow the petitioners to continue at their place of posting and to issue a writ of prohibition to restrain the respondents from relieving the petitioners.

2. Brief facts of the case leading to the filing of the instant writ petition are that petitioner Nos.1, 2, 3 & 4 were engaged as Teachers on 23.07.2003, 16.02.2004, 19.06.2000 & 06.05.2003 respectively. On completion of five years of service, the petitioners were made General Line Teachers. Thereafter, vide orders passed in August and September, 2014, the petitioners were deployed as CRP in different clusters till further orders etc. Orders of deployment only in respect of six petitioners have been placed on record as Annexure-A collectively. Subsequently, vide order Annexure-B dated 15.01.2015 issued by the Under Secretary to Government, School Education Department, all attachments /deployments of teaching staff viz. Lecturers / Masters / Teachers, at any level, were revoked with immediate effect. Director, School Education and concerned Chief Education Officers were directed to ensure that staff contemplated in aforesaid order was immediately relieved and reported at their original place of posting.

3. Order Annexure-B was challenged by way of SWP No.499/2015 and vide order dated 02.03.2015, the aforesaid writ petition was disposed of by directing the Commissioner / Secretary to Government, School Education Department to give a fresh look to order No.08-Edu of 2015 dated 15.01.2015 while taking into account Government instructions contained in the Transfer Policy. Needful was required to be done within a period of two weeks and till then, the orders impugned in the said writ petition were not to be acted upon and the petitioners were to be allowed to serve at their then place of posting.

4. It is the stand of the petitioners that with effect from said date, the petitioners were deployed at CRP and they were rendering service as Cluster Resource Persons. Pursuant to the directions in SWP No.499/2015 / number of connected writ petitions, impugned order Annexure D was passed. The said order while noticing that an employee holding a transferable post had no right to insist that he/she be allowed to serve at a particular place for a particular period, that transfer was generally a condition of service and an employee had no choice in the matter, transfer from one place to another place was necessary in public interest / efficiency in public administration and that whenever a public servant was transferred, he was required to comply with the said order, that in terms of Rule-27 of the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal Rules), 1956, a member of a service or class of a service could be required to serve in any part of the State on any post borne on the cadre of such service or class and that the Full Bench of this Court in SWP No.1476/2014 had held that a government servant had no enforceable right to insist that he/she be permitted to serve for a minimum of two years in a station or post and that transfer of a government servant from one place to another place was an incidence of service and did not effect or alter the terms and conditions of service, issue of transfer and posting had been considered by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in a number of decisions, transfer of a government servant appointed to a particular cadre of transferable post from one place to other was an incident of service and no government servant had any legal right for being posted at any particular place, that Government vide order No.26-Edu of 2016 dated 02.02.2016, upon review of attachment/deployment of staff in the School Education Depart