Transfers in administrative restructurings must comply with established rules governing transfers, and seniority can be carried over if initiated by the administration.

1. These appeals have been filed against the judgment of a learned single Judge by which he allowed the writ petition and quashed the order filed along with the writ petition as Annexure 13 in so far as it related to the appointment of opposite parties Nos. 5 to 19 in the writ petition (hereinafter referred to as the appellants) as Travelling Ticket Examiners and in so far as it directed the reversion of the petitioners (hereinafter referred to as the respondents) from the post of Leave Reserve Ticket Collectors.

2. The respondents claimed that the appellants were recruited in the ministerial cadre and their transfer to the open line cadre of Ticket Collectors was without authority of law and that even if it was valid they could not carry with them their seniority to the open line cadre. In case the first contention was accepted the appellants would have remained in their ministerial cadre without disturbing the seniority in the open line cadre. In case the second and not the first contention was accepted and their seniority was counted from the date of their entry in the open line cadre, the respondents would suffer no injury as they would remain senior to the appellants and get chances of promotion.

3. The learned single Judge held that the transfer of opposite parties Nos. 5 to 19 to the open line cadre was bad because it was in contravention of the Railway Board' s direction contained in Annexure 10 to the writ petition. Annexure 10 provided that "the junior most employee should be transferred first whenever any curtailment in a cadre takes place."
According to the learned Judge the transfers had been occasioned by curtailment in the cadre of ministerial staff and the appellants (opposite parties Nos. 5 to 19) not being the junior most, could not be transferred. Their transfer was accordingly held to be invalid, the necessary consequence of which was that the petitioner' s reversion was held to be unjustified and quashed.

4. Against the judgment of the learned single Judge the Railway Administration and the opposite parties Nos. 5 to 19 filed the two present second appeals. At the time of hearing of the writ petitions and also the special appeals, reliance was placed by the appellants on a Division Bench judgment of this Court in Special Appeal No. 258 of 1971 arising out of Civil Misc. Writ No. 3285 of 1969 ( A. K. Banerji v. Railway Board ) decided on Nov. 30, 1971 at Allahabad. On behalf of the respondents in the appeals it was urged that this judgment required reconsideration. The Division Bench, seeing prima facie an arguable case, referred the matter to a larger Bench, and that is how these appeals have come before a Full Bench.

5. A scheme of divisionalisation of North Eastern Railway Administration was put into operation in accordance with the Railway Board' s Notification dated 25-2-1969. According to this scheme the Administration was divided into four divisions. In pursuance of this scheme of divisionalisation the General Manager of the North Eastern Railway issued a notification in which option was given to the ministerial staff to select the station where they wanted to be posted, an option was also asked from them about their transfer from ministerial cadre to open line direct recruitment categories such as TC, TNC, BC, etc. The appellants were some of those who had given the option for being transferred to open line cadre. The transfer according to the scheme had to be subject to the employee' s suitability and qualifying at the end of training which was necessary to be given for entry in open line categories. The appellants qualified at the end of the training and on being found suitable were transferred to the open line cad