- (1.) PALOK Basu and M. C. Agarwal, JJ. Being primarily aware that in rarest of the rare cases this Court exercise powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India in so far as it relates to transfer of government servants, this is one instance where this, Court interfered by passing an interim order staying the transfer of the petitioner Jagvir Singh Talan and calling for counter affidavit. The standing Counsel was given time and accordingly, counter affidavit has been filed so much so that O. P. No. 5 Ravindra Prasad who has been posted in place of the petitioner, has also filed a counter affidavit and has been heard through his counsel. Rejoinder affidavit has been filed by the petitioner. As prayed, the writ petition is finally disposed of at the admission stage.
(2.) SRI. U. N. Sharma assisted by SRI. S. K. Rai for the petitioner, SRI. Pradeep Kumar, Standing Counsel for the State and its officials and Km. Bharti Sapru for op posite party No. 5 Ravindra Prasad have been heard at substantial length and entire record has been perused. It may be men tioned here that the standing counsel has produced before the Court a complete pho to state copies of the entire record of the department relating to the transfer matter. The petitioner is posted as Assistant Engineer (i) Mainpuri Division, Lower Ganga Canal Sub-Division-I Mainpuri. By the impugned transfer order dated 10-9-96 the petitioner has been transferred to another sub-division and in his place op posite party No. 5 Ravindra Prasad has been directed to be posted. A perusal of Annexure '8' indicates that this transfer order has been issued at the instance of Joint Secretary, Irrigation. The petitioner's case is that the transfer order smacks political interference in as much as some local member of the Legisla tive Assembly (EX) as well as some other political leaders have written to the officials including the advisor to the Governor for effecting the said transfer.
(3.) COPIES of letter of the former mem ber of the Legislative Assembly as also other letters of local persons having political background have been annexed with the writ petition. It was contended on behalf of private opposite party that this transfer order should not be interfered with primari ly for three reasons; (1) that the initial order of the transfer against the petitioner which was passed in July was cancelled/recalled and then the impugned transfer order has been passed ; (2) the impugned transfer order should not have interpreted as a con tinuous process beginning with the first transfer order and is the result of ad ministrative action because the Govern ment came across administrative contin gency to transfer the petitioner and; (3) that there is no change of posting of the petitioner even from the District and he continues to be posted in Mainpuri, this is not the occasion for this Court to exercise the powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. Standing Counsel has also, apart from retreating the aforesaid three argument raised by Km. Bharti Sapru has stated that it is normally an order of shifting of the petitioner which should not be connected with transfer orders which may generally be passed after three years of posting.;