Transfer not punishment: Madras HC

Chennai: Ticking off an employee for not joining at the transferred location for nine years, Madras high court has said administrative transfers are made on administrative exigencies or to improve the efficiency of management. "Being a condition stipulated in the order of appointment, it is the prerogative of management to transfer a workman from one place to another in the interest of administration/management. Unless mala fide or victimisation is established beyond a pale of doubt," the court said."Transfer is not a punishment, and it is only incidental to service. This being the concept, transfer per se would not provide a cause unless legal grounds are established to nullify administrative transfers," a division bench of Justice S M Subramaniam and Justice C Kumarappan said.
The judges made the observations while dismissing an appeal moved by Uzhaipor Urimai Iyakkam, a trade union for workers of L G Balakrishnan and Brothers Limited, Coimbatore. The union challenged the order of a single judge that refused to interfere in the transfer of workmen by the management of the company from the Coimbatore plant to its new unit at Pantnagar, Uttarakhand. The judges also said the workmen so transferred did not join duty for nine years, citing pending litigation. Noting that the relationship between management and workmen is contractual in nature, the bench said, "Terms and conditions agreed between the parties are binding unless it is challenged and set aside. In the present case, none of the provisions in the certified standing order nor conditions of transfer stipulated in the appointment order were challenged by the workmen," the court said.