Co. Ltd. & Ors. S.B. Date of Order :: 30th June 2008. PRESENT HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE DINESH MAHESHWARI Mr. Anil Bhandari ] Mr. Sunil Bhandari ], for the petitioner. Mr. M.S. Singhvi ] Mr. Akhilesh Rajpurohit ], for the respondents. Mr. Vineet Dave ] ...... Reportable BY THE COURT: By way of this writ petition, the petitioner, working on the post of Assistant (C) with the respondent National Insurance Company Limited [hereinafter referred to as the 'respondent Company'] and having been transferred from Divisional Office, Jodhpur to Branch Office, Balotara, has challenged the transfer order dated 18.08.2006 (Annex.7) as being violative of statutory requirements. 2 Put in a nutshell, the contentions of the petitioner are that a part of Transfer Policy as framed, and the consequential Administrative Instructions as issued by the respondent Company are not in conformity with the statutory Scheme related with such transfers; and that his transfer order has been issued by an officer who could not have been and has not been authorised to do so; and further that the transfer order has been issued even contrary to the terms of the Transfer Policy. The petitioner has averred in the writ petition that he was appointed by the respondent Company as substaff on compassionate grounds by the order dated 01.12.1983 (Annex.1), he joined the services at Branch Office, Jodhpur on 19.12.1983, and he was confirmed on the post of substaff with effect from 19.06.1984; then, he was promoted as Record Clerk by the order dated 15.06.1989 (Annex.2) and joined as such on 27.06.1989; and then, he was promoted to the post of Assistant (C) by the order dated 22.09.2000 (Annex.3) and joined as such on 22.09.2000. The petitioner has referred to the notification dated 21.12.2005 (Annex.4) whereby the Government of India issued General Insurance (Rationalisation and Revision of Pay Scale and other Conditions of Service of Supervisory, Clerical and Subordinate Staff) Second Amendment Scheme, 2005 3 [hereinafter referred to as 'the Amendment Scheme of 2005'] in order to amend, with effect from 01.08.2002, the General Insurance (Rationalisation and Revision of Pay Scale and other Conditions of Service of Supervisory, Clerical and Subordinate Staff) Scheme, 1974 [hereinafter referred to as 'the Scheme of 1974']; and has pointed out that paragraph 18 of the Scheme of 1974 dealing with 'transfer and change of place of work' of the employees was substituted by the provisions contained in paragraph 11 of the Amendment Scheme of 2005 whereby the Company or Corporation may frame Transfer and Mobility Policy, as approved by its Board; and has averred that under the said provision, any employee of Supervisory, Clerical and Subordinate Staff may be transferred from one department to another in the same office, from one office to another in the same station or from one station to another only on the basis of requirement or need. [Subparagraph (1) of the said paragraph 18 as substituted by the Scheme of 2005 being of repeated occurrence in the discussion hereafter, has also been referred to as 'the paragraph 18(1) of the Scheme' and, similarly, subparagraph (2) thereof has also been referred to as 'the paragraph 18(2) of the Scheme']. The petitioner has further pointed out that in pursuance to the said notification, i.e., the Amendment Scheme of 2005, 4 the respondent Company issued a Transfer and Mobility Policy [hereinafter referred to as 'the Transfer Policy' or 'TMP'] for Supervisory, Clerical and Subordinate Staff on 17.05.2006 (Annex.5) and as per subclause 5.5 of Clause 5 of TMP, the competent authority, if it considers necessary to do so to meet the office exigencies shall have discretion of restricting the number of transfers from a particular station to a maximum of 25% of the total classwise (Class III and IV sep