Bank CEO refuses to stop clerk’s transfer on MLA’s request, suspended for ‘hurting her ego’

The petitioner told the court that he had transferred a bank employee, which angered the MLA, who called and scolded him for the transfer without informing her. He was suspended after the MLA accused him of using unparliamentary language.

Justice Vivek Jain held that the suspension order was “passed in exercise of excessive powers and actuated by bias and at the behest of the MLA” and that the MLA had “over-reached her jurisdiction to bring the just grievances of the public to the notice of the bank authority”.

It further stated that it “was a case of a clerk using his political connections to bring about cancellation ordered by the CEO.”

The court said that “it does not appear to be a case of the MLA bringing to notice of the petitioner some general public grievance within his or her constituency”.

“In the present case, it is duly indicated from the facts available on record that it was a case of undue pressure being exerted and not a case of general public grievance of the constituency being brought to the notice of the bank management,” the court said.

The court observed that “it is, in fact, a case of the MLA feeling ego hurt by the refusal of the petitioner to accept her demand of cancellation of transfer of a clerk”.

The court observed that this case cannot be equated with the case of an MLA or MP recommending transfer order of an employee within his constituency, citing grievances of the public. “It was the case where the public representative was projecting the cause of a single employee holding the petty post of clerk and was pressuring the Chief Executive Officer of the Bank to cancel the transfer order… and it appears that the petitioner refused to buckle under pressure…,” the court said.