Failure to put in place an online mechanism for general transfers has landed the Cooperation department in trouble with the Kerala Administrative Tribunal (KAT).
The KAT has slapped an interim stay on a department order transferring 110 officers of the ranks of Assistant Registrars/Assistant Directors.
The department is yet to introduce online transfers despite giving an undertaking to the KAT that it would do so.
The October 3 KAT order came on a complaint lodged by the Kerala State Cooperative Inspectors and Auditors Association and its State president P.K. Jayakrishnan.
The KAT noted that the transfer order was in “patent violation” of the undertaking given to it by the department. The transfers, it observed, “seems to have been issued in a manner flouting the directions of this tribunal and in an attempt to circumvent the proceedings of this judicial forum”.
The tribunal did not accept the department’s argument that promotions of some of the officers had made the transfers necessary.
It should be noted that the Personnel and Administrative Reforms department, Government of Kerala, had issued orders in February 2017 and October 2021 directing all government departments to create electronic databases of their staff and carry out transfers and postings only through the online system.
The association had first brought the absence of the online transfers to the notice of the KAT in 2021. Then, the KAT had directed the Registrar of Cooperative Societies to take a decision on the matter. Subsequently, the Registrar launched steps for creating an online database of the employees and developing a software. But the online transfers did not become a reality.
In 2022, the department informed the tribunal that the online system would be in place from April 2023 onwards. But the deadline was not met, forcing the association to approach KAT again earlier this year. The department responded that the software would be operational shortly and that all subsequent transfers would be made only though it. Again, the assurance remained on paper. It is in this context that the association moved the KAT yet again.
According to the association, the Cooperation department is slow-pedalling on the matter when State government departments with much higher staff strength have already implemented the online transfer mechanism.
