Central Administrative Tribunal - Hyderabad
M Chandra Sekhara Srinivasu vs All India Radio on 5 April, 2024
OA/272/2022
CENTRAL ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL
HYDERABAD BENCH
OA/21/272/2022
HYDERABAD, this the 05th day of April, 2024
Hon'ble Dr. Lata Baswaraj Patne, Judicial Member
1. M. Chandra Sekhara Srinivasu,
S/o Sri MV Gurunadham, Age about 57 Years,
Occ: Announcer Gr-III,
O/o All India Radio, Saifabad, Hyderabad.
2. A. Bala Krishna,
S/o Sri AVR Acharya, Age about 54 Years,
Occ: Announcer Gr-IV,
O/o All India Radio, Saifabad, Hyderabad.
3. A. Raja Babu,
S/o Sri SKL Kantha Rao, Age about 54 Years,
Occ: Announcer Gr-III,
O/o All India Radio, Saifabad, Hyderabad.
...Applicants
(By Advocate: Mr. K. Sudhaker Reddy)
Vs.
1.The Union of India Rep. by its
Secretary Ministry of Information & Broadcasting Shastri Bhavan,
New Delhi.
2. The Chief Executive Officer Prasar Bharthi,
Prasar Bharthi Towers Mandi House, Copernicus Marg, New Delhi.
3. The Director General All India Radio Akashavani Bhavan,
Parliament Street New Delhi 110 011
4. The Addl. Director General (A) (SZ) All India Radio & Doordarshan
Akashavani Bhavan, Parliament Street New Delhi-110 011.
...Respondent
(By Advocate: Mr. A. Radhakrishna, Sr. PC for CG)
----
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OA/272/2022
ORAL ORDER
(As per Hon'ble Dr. Lata Baswaraj Patne, Judicial Member) By this OA, the applicants sought the following relief:
"........to set aside the impugned transfer order No.ADG(A)(SZ)/1(@)/Prog/AIR&DD/2022 Dated:
1904/2022, issued by R-4 so far as the applicants are concerned as illegal, arbitrary and against transfer policy and clear violation of Fundamental Rights of the applicant under Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India and pass such order or orders as deemed fit in the circumstances of the case."
2. The brief facts of the case are that the applicants are appointed as "Announcer's" in the Akashavani and are being continued without any further avenues of promotions and all of them completed long length of service and due for retirement. The Announcer's at AIR, Hyderabad are also involved in Programme Productions of national importance like Prime Minister's "Man Ki Baath", production of features, documentaries and interviewing eminent persons on live etc., The sanctioned strength of Announcers at AIR HYD & CBS is 22 and out of which, 17 posts are vacant and only 4 Announcers are in position. Now, the strength of Announcers is reduced to -1. The success of any program solely depends on the program presentation and compering ability of the Announcer's. All India Radio is generally a programme generation facility with support of Engineering and Administrative personnel. There has been Cluster formation w.e.f. 1st April, 2022 and the Local Radio Stations will be relay Station's. All the staff will be deputed to AIR, Head Quarter's, Hyderabad including Engineering and Administration. Being centralized with cluster formation Control Station Head will be the controlling Page 2 of 9 OA/272/2022 officer and originate the programs and other stations in the state will relay the program broadcast by AIR Hyderabad. It is stated by the applicants that programme generating facility has been severely effected due to wrong policy decision and inadequate programme staff. It is countered by than that the impugned transfer order No. ADG(A)(SZ)/1(2)/Prog/AIR&DD/2022 dated 19.04.2022, issued by Respondent No.4. is in clear violation of the transfer policy and is nothing but colorable exercise of power. Feeling aggrieved, the applicants are approached this Tribunal.
3. After Notice, respondents appeared through their counsel and filed detailed reply opposing the relief on the ground that the applicant No.1 joined the services and working at AIR, Hyderabad on 12.07.1996 i.e. for more than 25 years out of 30 years of service. The applicant No.2 has been working at AIR, Hyderabad from 8.3.2004 i.e. for more than 18 years.
Likewise, the applicant No.3 has been working at Hyderabad for more than 17 years. It is further submitted by the respondents that the applicants are transferred to Adilabad, Warangal and Nizamabad respectively, where, out of total strength of 11 posts, there are only 2, 4 and 2 post are in position respectively. Thereby, programme production work is hampered.
As per the transfer policy, looking into administrative exigencies, the applicants were transferred from AIR Hyderabad to AIR Adilabad, from CBS Hyderabad to AIR Warangal, from CBS Hyderabad to AIR Nizamabad respectively. The said transfer has been issued in pursuance of the Prasara Bharathi, Secretariat's Office Order No.35 of 2021-PPC issued in file number A-10011/NTP/2019-PPC, dated 12.02.2021. The respondent No.2 has formulated four recommending committees and the Committee members are Page 3 of 9 OA/272/2022
1. Zonal Head (Content Operations), 2. DDG (HR & Legal) and 3. DDA/Sr. Administrative Officer/Administrative Officer. The zonal head (Content Operations) (SZ) is the Recommending Authority and Respondent No.4 Zonal Head (Admin) (SZ) is the Competent authority for issuing transfer orders in respect of group 'B' Non- Gazetted Programme staff of Prasar Bharati in South Zone. As per the PB order dated 12.2.2021 (R-2) ADG (A) (SZ) is having delegated power and transfer is affected on following grounds. The applicants are holding group 'B' Non-Gezetted post and they were initially appointed as Announcers at All India Radio, Tirupathi, Kurnool, Nizamabad respectively and all the applicants were subsequently transferred in the same capacity to Hyderabad. By way of the said transfer, the applicants were transferred in the same capacity in the public interest only, followed with the transfer policy of All India Radio.
4. The respondents further contended that there is acute shortage of staff in Prasara Bharathi, particularly in Announcers/Programme Officials cadre. On the other hand, the Announcers posts in All India Radio, Adilabad, Warangal and Nizamabad are lying vacant for some time now and there are none at present. Under the circumstances, taking into consideration the skill and abilities of the applicants, they have been posted ensuring availability of at least one Announcer for minimum programme broadcast requirement at Adilabad, Warangal, Nizamabad. The duties of the Announcers in All India Radio set up is to make announcements, broadcast playback recordings of music or other programs as per the scheduled cue sheet, compering for various categories of programs, replies to listener letter and any other duties which may be assigned from time to time.
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OA/272/2022
5. The respondents further contended that, by way of interim order dated 25.04.2022 Status-quo has been obtained by the applicants by misleading the court giving half of the information only. The respondents further contended that in All India setup, a Senior Programme Officer will look after the National Importance Programmes whenever broadcasting the messages given by the Hon'ble Prime Minister/President of India in regional language and the said officer would finalize the script after discussions with subject experts/translators. The duty of the Announcers is to follow the script before the microphone. Therefore, the contention of the applicant that they are involved in the National Importance programmes like 'Man Ki Bath' is totally false, baseless and applicants are trying to mislead the Tribunal. Further, there is no permanent allocation of programmes among the Announcers. They have to perform their duties as per the requirement of All India Radio, from time to time. The respondents contended that there is no recruitment after the appointment of the applicants due to ban on recruitment and some of the Announcers were superannuated after attaining the age of superannuation. Therefore, the Announcers posts are lying vacant since three decades in Prasar Bharathi. Hence, the Prasara Bharathi has decided to encourage the young local talent, who are interested in public service broadcast, conducted the auditions, given proper training and accordingly introduced the new voices to its listener on assignment basis with minimum remuneration. The programme generation in Prasar Bharathi is being done with the support of Programmme, Engineering, News and the Administration. Therefore, the applicants cannot say the success of any programme solely depends on the programme presentation; it depends on the theme/subject of the programme and the team work in programme production.
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OA/272/2022 It is further submitted by the respondents that to improve the administrative efficiency, optimal use of administrative machinery and to ease the congestion of pending cases related to service or establishments of administrative activities only, Prasar Bharati has decided to introduce the Cluster System, wherein all the field units i.e., Local Radio Stations or Relay Stations in a particular State will come under the control of one or two Clusters. Therefore, that cluster head will be held responsible for all its field units in respect of administrative activities like service matters / office administration, legal cases, RTI & grievances, Budget & Financial management etc. The said cluster formation is under preliminary stage and it has not yet been implemented. Cluster formation has been designed only to ease the administrative constraints being faced by the field units in view of the shortage administrative staff and to speed up the pending administrative issues in the field units only. The respondents submitted that Prasar Bharati has not decided or either focused on the relay of programmes of the Cluster i.e., Hyderabad through Local Radio Stations in the State. The primary purpose of establishing Local Radio Station is to spread the knowledge to the listeners about local culture and also to encourage the local talent. It is further submitted that if the so called vacant posts of Announcers at AIR, Hyderabad are forced to be filled, then it will lead to concentration of the employees at one place i.e., Hyderabad and affect the operations of AIR, Adilabad, Nizamabad and Warangal severely. Hence, the transfers are normally made not to disturb the staff, but to meet the exigencies for smooth running of transmissions of AIR. The applicants, being senior most and efficient employees of the organization, should be ready to shoulder the responsibility Page 6 of 9 OA/272/2022 and take up the posting at AIR, Adilabad, Nizamabad and Warangal and should not shy away from the responsibility. Therefore, the respondents in their reply relied upon the various judgments of the Hon'ble Supreme Court. Learned counsel for the respondents further submitted that in the matter of transfer, it cannot be claimed by the applicants, as a matter of right, to stay at a particular place. It is the duty of the employee, who accepted the transfer liability while joining in the service, to obey the transfer order and join the new place. This Tribunal, under the judicial review, has a limited power in the matter of transfer. Hence, prayed dismissal of the OA.
4. Heard both sides and perused the record.
5. The learned counsel for the applicants strongly argued on the point that the applicants no doubt have worked from 1996 onwards. The applicants being Senior most employees their services are more required at present office. The learned counsel for the applicants further argued that at the fag end of the their career when the applicant No.1&2 have filed the present OA they reached the age of 57 years as well as applicant no.3 reached to 54 years. Even the policy support the employees who are nearing to their superannuation. More particularly when applicants approached this Tribunal, this Tribunal considering the merit in the matter has granted Status-quo. Thereby, the applicants are continued in the present station only. Now pending the OA, the applicant No.1, who is going to retire on 30.04.2025, is having only twelve months from today. As well as, the applicant No.2, who is going to be superannuated on 30.05.2025 has 13 months only for his retirement.
6. The learned counsel for the applicants further contended that as per the Page 7 of 9 OA/272/2022 transfer policy, the said transfer policy is not applicable to the Announcers who have been locally recruited. The learned counsel for the applicant further submitted that, keeping 3 posts vacant, this programme generating facility has been severely effected.
7. Learned counsel for the applicants further contended that out of 14 posts, only 4 persons are working in the present institution. Out of 3 persons applicant in the OA came to be transferred while keeping one person and also engaging also out siders.
It is to be noted that, as contended by the learned counsel for the applicants that out of 14 posts, only 4 posts were filled up and out of these 3 persons, the applicants who are working in the same post came to be transferred from AIR Hyderabad to AIR Adilabad, from CBS Hyderabad to AIR Warangal, from CBS Hyderabad to AIR Nizamabad.
8. It is up to the administrator to adjust the employee to extract the services from the employee. It is also to be noted that when the applicants approached this Tribunal at that time, they were aged 57 & 54 respectively and as such, they were not coming under the consideration. On the other hand, learned counsel for the applicant submits that the said transfer policy is not applicable to the Announcers who were locally recruited. It is to be noted that the applicants are working at present place from 1996 and 2004 respectively. Looking into the administrative exigency they were transferred to Adilabad, Warangal and Nizamabad. It is to be noted that, at that time, applicants were having more than 2 years of service for their retirement. Therefore, the applicant cannot seek the shelter of the benefit of the policy in partly.
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OA/272/2022
9. It is to be noted that the Hon'ble Supreme Court held in the matter of Shilpi Bose (Mrs) and others V. State of Bihar, 1991 Supp (2) SCC 659 that the Court cannot, in routine manner, interfere in the matter of transfer. In S.C. Saxena v. Union of India (2006) 9 SCC 583, the Hon'ble Apex Court held that a Govt. Servant cannot disobey a transfer order and it is his duty to first report for work at the transferred place.
10. Therefore, the applicants are directed to report forthwith at transferred place and thereafter, if they have having any grievance, they may approach the competent authority.
11. In view of the same, the OA is dismissed. Interim Order is vacated. No order as to costs.
(DR. LATA BASWARAJ PATNE) JUDICIAL MEMBER /al/ Page 9 of 9