The Kerala Administrative Tribunal (KAT) on Friday stayed the general transfers of higher secondary school teachers in the State.
The Principal Bench of the tribunal led by chairman C.K. Abdul Rehim issued an interim order on the basis of a plea by six English higher secondary school teachers who faulted the transfer proceedings by the General Education department this year.
The petitioners, all of them from Thiruvananthapuram and had applied for transfers to their home station, approached the KAT citing the transfers violated the prescribed norms since they had been finalised without inviting applications from those eligible.
Last year’s application
Instead, the department had considered the applications received the previous year. The criteria that had been fixed a year ago was also taken into consideration while preparing the provisional transfer list published on February 15, they claimed.
Last year, the department had invited applications for transfers from those teachers who had completed three years in a station. Its circular had stated that the posts of teachers who had completed five years of service in their home station will be among those that would be treated as open vacancies for transfer. However, the transfers could not be effected for various reasons, including the spread of COVID-19.
The petitioners, who were represented by advocate Fathahudeen M., contended that more teachers would have been eligible to apply had the department invited fresh applications this year. Likewise, more vacancies would have opened up.
34 vacancies
They also faulted the transfer proceedings to the 34 vacancies that were reported in the capital district. While only four vacancies were reserved for home station transfers, as many as 26 were proposed for priority categories such as compassionate, preferential and retirement transfers.
They claimed the ‘arbitrary’ move would defeat the objective of general transfers to accommodate eligible employees in their home station.
The government informed that the transfer proceedings, which is estimated to involve roughly 5,000 teachers, would be kept on hold until further instructions were issued by the KAT when the case is considered on April 13.
