The power to prescribe the conditions of service in private schools is vested with the Government by statutory provisions and the method of exercise of that power is also delineated by the statute itself. The Government does not have the power to add a condition regarding the power of transfer to the statutory forms governing the contract of service in private schools as the power to prescribe the conditions of service in private schools is vested with the Government by statutory provisions and the method of exercise of that power is also delineated by the statute itself.

Nainar Sundaram. J.

The petitioner in W.P. No. 5859 of 1987 is the appellant in this writ appeal. The respondents in the writ petition are the respondents herein. It will be convenient for us if we refer to the parties, as per the nomenclature assigned to them in the writ petition. The first-respondent is a trust governed by a scheme framed by the original side of this Court. The management of the first-respondent has been taken over by the second-respondent under the Pachaiyappa's Trust (Taking over of Management) Act II of 1981. On 25th June 1971, the petitioner was appointed by the first-respondent as a B. T. Science Assistant in the Pachaiyappa's High School, Chidambaram, hereinafter referred referred to as 'the School at Chidambaram'. It must be immediately pointed out that there was no term in the order of appointment that the petitioner is liable to be transferred to any other school under the management of the first-respondent. On 1st December 1974, the Tamil Nadu Recognised Private Schools (Regulation) Act, 1973 (Tamil Nadu Act 29 of 1974), hereinafter referred to as 'the Act', came into force. The first-respondent is running more than one school. All the schools, including the school at Chidambaram, run by the first-respondent, being private schools, are governed by the Act. The First-respondent does not and cannot claim itself to be a minority institution. The provisions of the Act and the Rules framed thereunder apply to the schools under the management of the first-respondent with full vigour and rigour. After the Act came into force, the petitioner and the school committee of the school at Chidambaram, on 15th July 1978, entered into the agreement as per the form VII-A set out in the rules framed under the Act. Even in this agreement-assuming it is tenable to do so-there is no term adumbrated enabling either the first respondent or the school committee of the school at Chidambaram to transfer the petitioner to any of the schools under the management of the first-respondent. However, on 27th June 1981, the second-respondent brought in G.O.Ms. No. 1228, Education Department, the body of which runs as follows :

"In the circumstances reported by the Director of School Education in his letter read above, the Government direct that the Pachaiyappa's Trust Board, Madras be declared as a Corporate Body for the purpose of transfer of teachers and other persons employed in Schools run by them, permitting the school committee to include a transfer clause in agreements (Form VII-A or VII-B) that transfer should be made only during the summer vacation of the schools concerned and that transfer should not be effected during the middle of the school year. The Government also direct that all the schools run by the above Board be treated as a single unit for the purpose of promotion as contemplated in the rule 15(4)(ii) of the Tamil Nadu Recognised Private Schools (Regulation) Rules.

2. The Government also ratify the action of the management in having transferred Tmt. K. Thillaikkarasi, Tamil Pandit, from Pachaiyappa's Higher Secondary School, Kanchipuram to Pachaiyappa's Higher Secondary School, Chidambaram on 21st December 1979 prior to receipt of Government Orders, treating all schools run by the management as a corporate body for the purpose of transfer and permit the management to include a transfer clause in the Agreement." *

On 30th May 1987, the first-respondent transferred the petitioner from the school at Chidambaram to Pachaiyappa's College Higher Secondary School at Madras, hereinafter referred to as 'the school at Madras'. The petitioner, aggrieved by the order of the transfer, approached this Court by way of the writ petition, challenging the order of transfer. The learned single Judge, who heard the writ petition, did not countenance the grievances of the petitioner and opined that the order of transfer of the petitioner from the school at Chidambaram to the school at Madras was made on administrative gro