ORDER
V.V.S. Rao, J.
1. The third respondent is Professor of Plastic Surgery in Osmania University Medical College (OMG). At present he is working in M.N.J. Institute of Oncology and Regional Cancer Centre, Hyderabad. He filed O.A.No. 5427 of 1999 under Section 19 of Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 (‘the Act’ for brevity) before the A.P. Administrative Tribunal (‘the Tribunal’ for brevity) to quash Memo No. 19551/A1/ 98-1 dt. 17-4-1999 passed by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, the first respondent herein and also seeking consequential direction to forthwith reconsider the representations of the applicant dt. 7-1-1998 and 13-5-1998 for transfer to OMC/Osmania General Hospital (OGH) as Professor of Plastic Surgery. The impugned order dt. 17-4-1999 reads as under:
In pursuance to the order of A.P. Administrative Tribunal referred to above, the representation of Dr. G.V. Sudhakar, Professor of Plastic Surgery, Osmania Medical College/ M.N.J. Institute of Oncology and Regional Cancer Centre, Hyderabad for transfer to Osmania Medical College/Osmania General Hospital, Hyderabad is considered and rejected.
2. The Tribunal allowed the original application and directed the respondents to pass fresh orders on the request made by the third respondent for his posting to OMC/OGH. The Tribunal passed the said orders purportedly for the reason that the third respondent completed more than five years of service in the said M.N.J. Cancer Hospital and also because his junior, the writ petitioner herein, completed minimum service of three years in OMC as Professor of Plastic Surgery. The relevant passage from the impugned judgment is as follows:
In view of the fact that the applicant has completed more than 5 years of service in M.N.J. Cancer Hospital, and in view of the fact that the said Dr. V. Sivaram Reddy, being the junior-most in the category of Professors of Plastic Surgery, has completed 3 years of service in Osmania Medical College, the claim of the applicant for a posting in Osmania Medical College, where he will have the opportunity to teach students of M.Ch. (Plastic Surgery), gains considerable force. In any case, there seems to be no point in keeping away the senior-most Professor in the subject from the teaching of the same to the M.Ch. students, to which he is eminently suited, according to his qualifications and experience.
The applicant has therefore made out a case for his transfer and posting in the Osmania Medical College/ Osmania General Hospital as Professor of Plastic Surgery.
3. Be it noted that Dr. V. Sivaram Reddy referred to by the Tribunal in the above extract was not made a party to the original application. As he is imminently and vitally affected, he filed the present Writ Petition with the leave of this Court. He is at present Professor in OMC/OGH. In his affidavit he stated that initially the third respondent filed O.A.No. 4136 of 1998 praying the Tribunal for a direction to the respondents to consider his request for being posted to OMC/OGH vide his representations dt. 7-1-1998 and 13-5-1998 and that the Tribunal disposed of the said O.A. directing the respondents to pass appropriate orders within a period of thirty days. Thereafter, it is stated that the Government considered the representations made by the third respondent and passed the impugned order. It is also stated that though he is vitally affected, the third respondent did not choose to make him as respondent in the O.A. and that the impugned judgment of the Tribunal is illegal and arbitrary. The petitioner also stated that though there are two posts in OGH as is done in other Hospitals, the senior professor is posted as Head of the Department and the junior is posted as second Professor instead of posting two seniors as Heads of the Departments. Dr. Thakur Hameer Singh is the Senior Professor and therefore he is posted as Head of the Department in OMC/OGH and the petitioner is posted as other Professor. In the case of third respondent he is posted as Head of the Department of Plastic Surgery in M.N.J. Cancer Hospital. The Government has considered all these aspects and rejected his case by the impugned order.
4. We have heard the learned Counsel for the writ petitioner, learned Government Pleader for respondents 1 and 2 and the learned Counsel for the third respondent. It is firstly contended that in the absence of the writ petitioner being a respondent, the Tribunal ought not to have passed an order, which directly affects the petitioner. There cannot be any dispute on this proposition. It is well settled that High Court ought not to decide a Writ under Article 226 of the Constitution of India when the persons who would be vitally affected by its judgment are not before it as respondents. (See Prabodh Verma v. State of U.P., AIR 1985 SC 165 Ishwar Singh v. Kuldip Singh, J. Jose Dhanapaul v. S. Thomas, and Arun Tewari v. Zila Mansavi Shikshak Sangh, AIR 1998 SC 331.
5. It is needless to point out that being Constitutional alternative mechanism in the matter of judicial review, the Tribunal exercises powers akin to the powers exercised by the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution. It is axiomatic that no person should be meted out with an order resulting in civil consequences without being heard. A bare reading of impugned judgment shows the Tribunal intended that the third respondent should be considered for being posted as Professor in Plastic Surgery in OMC/OGH in place of the petitioner herein. We fail to understand how the Tribunal could make such order/observation when the petitioner herein was not even made a party. For this reason alone, the impugned judgment is liable to be set aside.
6. The next question arises from the submission made by the learned Counsel for the third respondent to the effect that it is arbitrary and improper for the respondents 1 and 2 to post Junior Professor in OMC/OGH while continuing Senior Professor in the institute attached to the Hospital. We are unable to appreciate this submission. For the sake of efficient administration the administrator should be allowed to ‘abundant play in the joints’ to find proper human resources for a required job. Indeed, it is the foundation for efficient administration. It is not for the Courts to direct the competent authority to post a particular person in a particular post. Such a direction would be contrary to the principle of judicial review. Judicial review is more concerned with examining the validity or vires of administrative decision than moulding the making of such administrative decision. In matters of transfers of employees, be it noted that, it is an incident of service and no employee has right, much less enforceable right or even legitimate expectation, to be retained or posted to a particular post of his/her choice. In this case, the representations of the third respondent for being posted to OMC/OGH were considered and rejected by the impugned order. The prayer made by the third respondent was to reconsider his two representations. Curiously the Tribunal almost gave mandatory order in favour of the third respondent and against the writ petitioner. It is to be remembered that such a course of action is ordinarily not permissible in exercise of jurisdiction to issue a prerogative Writ of Mandamus.
7. There is no gainsaying to reiterate that employees are liable to be transferred at the discretion of the employer. If there is a grievance about the transfer, the recognised right is only to make a representation to the authorities. The Court or the Tribunal cannot curtail the power of transfer of administrative authorities and strike down an administrative act as to protect/enforce a quasi-legal right; the existence of which is doubtful-or a legitimate expectation which is less than legal right would amount to truncating the powers of the authorities. No Court exercising power of judicial review can tinker with the power of transfer. The authority of the precedents is abundant and non-mentioning of the authorities does not make our observations less forceful. However, we may mention to authorities.
8. In B. Vardha Rao v. State of Karnataka, he Supreme Court held:
“It is well understood that transfer of a Government servant who is appointed to a particular cadre of transferable posts from one place to another is an ordinary incident of service and therefore does not result in any alteration of any of the conditions of service to his disadvantage. That a Government servant is liable to be transferred to a similar post in the same cadre is a normal feature and incident of Government service and no Government servant can claim to remain in a particular place or in a particular post unless, of course, his appointment itself is to be a specified, non-transferable post.”
9. In Shilpi Bose v. State of Bihar, the Supreme Court observed as under:
We fail to appreciate the reasoning recorded by the High Court. If the competent authority issued transfer orders with a view to accommodate a public servant to avoid hardship, the same cannot and should not be interfered by the Court merely because the transfer orders were passed on the request of the employees concerned. The respondents have continued to be posted at their respective places for the last several years; they have no vested right to remain posted at one place. Since they hold transferable posts they are liable to be transferred from one place to the other. The transfer orders had been issued by the competent authority, which did not violate any mandatory rule, therefore, the High Court had no jurisdiction to interfere with the transfer orders.
10. The narration of the facts in the beginning of this judgment revealed that the impugned order itself was passed after considering the representations made by the third respondent in obedience to the orders of the Tribunal in O.A.No. 4136 of 1998. Therefore, there is no need for the Tribunal to again direct the respondents 1 and 2 for passing fresh orders.
11. In the result, for the aforesaid reasons, the Writ Petition is allowed and the impugned judgment of the Tribunal dt. 31-3-2000 is set aside. There shall be no order as to costs.