Tilak Ram Pandey v. State Of Chhattisgarh

HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH, BILASPUR W.P.(S) No. 6564 of 2016 Tilak Ram Pandey, S/o Late Shri Kartik Ram, Aged About 59 Years, Presently Working As In-Charge Forest Range Officer, Kotadol Forest Range, ( General/ Production), Korea Forest Division, Baikunthpur, Distt. Korea, (Chhattisgarh) ---- Petitioner

Versus

1.State Of Chhattisgarh Through The Secretary, Department Of Forest Surguja Circle, Mantralaya, Mahanadi Bhawan, Naya Raipur, District Raipur, (Chhattisgarh)

2. Chief Conservator Of Forest Chhattisgarh, Surguja Forest Circle, Ambikapur (Chhattisgarh)

3. Divisional Forest Officer, Korea Forest Division, Baikunthpur, District Korea (Chhattisgarh)

4. Sadhu Lal Gupta, Deputy Forest Ranger, Sonhat Forest Range, Korea Forest Division, Baikunthpur, District Korea, (Chhattisgarh) ---- Respondent For petitioner - Shri Ashish Shrivastava, Advocate. For Respondent/State - Shri Anil S. Pandey, G.A. Hon'ble Shri Justice Goutam Bhaduri Order 1/12/2016 1.

Challenge in this petition is to the order dated 21/11/2016 (Annexure P-1) whereby the petitioner who was working as Deputy Forest Ranger of General and Production as also holding charge of Forest Ranger of Kotadol and of Sonhat has been transferred to Head Office Baikunthpur.

2.

It is alleged that entire exercise has been carried out in order to accommodate respondent No.4 and it is further stated that petitioner is due for retirement within further period of 9 months i.e. on 30/09/2017,

therefore according to the policy of the State Government it being the ban period, neither petitioner can be transferred nor within one year before the retirement he can be transferred to other place. It is further submitted that the petitioner has also made a representation against the transfer which is pending decision.

3.

Perused the documents. It appears that the petitioner is working at Kotadol from 2014. Though he was Deputy Forest Ranger he was given charge of Forest Ranger of Kotadol and Sonhat. Now by the transfer order petitioner has been transferred to Baikunthpur which is 180 kms away. Transfer policy of the State Government is placed on record which purports that as far as possible when the government servant is due for retirement, in such case his posting may be considered to post him at his home district. It is not claimed that Kotadol is the home district of petitioner. The petitioner appears to be working at Kotadol from 2014 and was in charge of Forest Ranger also. Even in such case no right can be claimed to continue to hold the charge of Forest Ranger at the insistence of petitioner.

It is the discretion of the employer/government to get the particular nature job from the employee and suitability can be justified by the employer itself and not by the employee. As far as the service jurisprudence a settled proposition is that the transfer is incident of service and government would be the sole arbitrator to decide status of posting of its employee. Therefore, court is not inclined to interfere in such order of transfer Annexure P-1.

4.

Taking into fact that the petitioner has filed a representation which is pending adjudication, it is directed that the transferring authority shall decide the representation dated 21/11/2016 within a further period of four weeks from today.

5.

For a period of four weeks, no coercive steps shall be taken against

the petitioner.

6.

With the aforesaid observation, this petition is finally disposed off. Sd/- (Goutam Bhaduri) JUDGE gouri