Transfer being an incident of service, employees have no legal right to be posted forever at any one particular place, and courts cannot interfere with day-to-day transfer orders unless malafide exercise of power or violation of statutory provisions.

JUDGMENT :

S.K. Panigrahi, J.

1. This matter is taken up through hybrid mode.

2. Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and learned counsel for the State.

3. The present petition has been directed against the illegal transfer order whereby the petitioner was asked to relocate from Gopabandhu Govt. U.P School, Bharatpur, Bhubaneswar to Govt. High School, Khandagiri. The Petition calls into question and challenges the action of the Opposite Parties for violating the principles laid down in Government Notification No. 22167/S & ME dated 04.10.2018 and prays to quash the said illegal transfer order in the interests of justice.

4. Shorn of unnecessary details, the substratum of the matter presented before this court remain that the petitioner has been working as an Asst. Teacher at Gopabandhu Govt. U.P School, Bharatpur, Bhubaneswar. Subsequently, vide Office Order no. 6838 dated 10.12.2021, the petitioner was issued a transfer order.

5. The petitioner has submitted that he has bona fide reasons towards making representations against the said transfer order as it violates the principles and guidelines laid down in Notification No. 22167/S & ME dated 04.10.2018. Relevant assertions in the complaint reads as follows:

“In order to comply with the provisions reflected in Section 19 and 25 and the Schedule-1(a)(b) of norms and standards for a school of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules, 2010 i.e., school-wise PTR of 30:01 at primary level and 35:01 at the Upper Primary Level with a minimum of 2(two) teachers per school, rationalization of teachers is essentially required.

II. Transfers on Rationalisation

a) Principles

i. Teachers will be transferred from schools with surplus teachers to schools with teacher deficit. The requirements of teachers can be assessed keeping in view the PTR norms in RCFCE Act, 2009 & Orissa RCFCE Rules, 2010.”

6. It is argued on behalf of learned counsel for the petitioner that the staff strength in Gopabandhu U.P School, Bharatpur, as on 31.03.2022, was 13 as compared to the mandated requirement of 18 which is essential to maintain a teacher-pupil ratio of 1:30. Learned Counsel for the petitioner has also submitted that since the Notification No. 22167/S & ME dated 04.10.2018 prohibits the transfer of teachers from deficit school to surplus school, the action of the Opposite Party, in issuing the transfer order to the Petitioner, is contrary to the guidelines and directions formulated by the state government.

7. Indisputably, in the case at hand, the court is of the opinion that transfer being an incident of service, no exception could be taken to the impugned orders of transfer, which came to be made according to the Opposite Party in accordance with law and in public interest, particularly in the absence of any proof of malafides or contravention of any specific prohibitory provision in this regard, rendering the employees immune from such transfers.

8. It is by now well-settled and often reiterated by the Hon’ble Supreme Court that no Government servant or employee of public Undertaking has any legal right to be posted forever at any one particular place since transfer of a particular employee appointed to the class or category of transferable posts from one place to other is not only an incident, but a condition of service, necessary too in public interest and efficiency in the public administration. Unless an order of transfer is shown to be an outcome of malafide exercise of power or stated to be in violation of statutory provisions prohibiting any such transfer, the Courts or the Tribunals cannot interfere with such orders as a matter of routine, as though they are the Appellate Authorities substituting their own decision for that of the Management, as against such orders passed in the interest of administrative exigencies of the service concerned.

9. In view of the facts and circumstances of the case presented, this c