In an order that recognises parents’ anxiety when their children are about to appear for public examinations, the Madras High Court Bench here has directed Southern Railway Employees’ Cooperative Credit Society (SRECCS) to keep an employee’s transfer order in abeyance for six months to facilitate his daughter complete Class XII.
Justice B. Rajendran issued the direction on a writ petition filed by R. Saravanan, an accounts assistant who had challenged an order passed by the SRECCS on December 15, transferring him from Tiruchi to Thiruvananthapuram, on various grounds, including the fact that it had been in the middle of the academic year.
According to the petitioner, his employer had transferred him to Kerala once in November 2006. But then, he was reverted to Tiruchi within 10 months since he could speak neither Malayalam nor Hindi. He reportedly met with a road accident in 2010 and suffered injuries in his spinal cord which made him unfit to travel long distances.
Now the petitioner urged the court to quash the present transfer order on the ground that his daughter was half-way through her Class XII. However, during the course of arguments, petitioner’s counsel said it would be suffice if the transfer could be postponed until the Plus Two examinations got over.
The judge said: “Considering the said fact, this court is of the view that the order of transfer can be kept in abeyance for a period of six months with a specific condition that the petitioner should join duty at the transferred place immediately on the expiry of six months without resorting to filing any writ petition or seeking to extend the time granted by this court.”
