B Ashok’s transfer: Kerala HC asks CAT to consider petitions’ maintainability

Kochi: The high court has directed the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) to consider the maintainability of petitions filed by senior IAS officer B Ashok challenging his transfers from the post of agricultural production commissioner and principal secretary (agriculture) first.A bench of Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice Basant Balaji gave the directive on petitions filed by state govt challenging the CAT's interim orders staying Ashok's inter-cadre transfer.Ashok was transferred from the post of agriculture department principal secretary as KTDFC CMD on Aug 30. On Sept 1, the CAT granted Ashok an interim stay and permitted him to continue in the current post. On Sept 15, the state govt withdrew the earlier order and transferred him to the personnel and administrative reforms department as principal secretary. The CAT stayed this order as well, observing that issuing such an order without the leave of the tribunal, when the matter was pending and already under stay, amounted to bypassing its directions and was not acceptable.Challenging these orders, the state argued that transfer and posting are incidents of service and that an IAS officer has no lien over a particular post. Advocate general K Gopalakrishna Kurup, appearing for the state, also argued that Ashok's petitions before the CAT were not legally maintainable, as he improperly impleaded the governor as a respondent. He submitted that the governor cannot be made an independent party in a transfer dispute under the constitutional scheme. Ashok's counsel Girija K Gopal submitted that the state had already raised this contention before the CAT, and that the governor indicated he had no objection to him being impleaded in the petitions.In view of these submissions, the bench observed that before examining the merits of the case, the CAT must first decide the issue of maintainability raised by the state and adjourned the petitions to Sept 29 for further consideration.