Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC-LKO:37507 Court No. - 18 Case :- WRIT - A No. - 6960 of 2025 Petitioner :- Darpan Maheshwari Respondent :- State Of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Food Safety And Drug Administration Deptt. Lko. And Another Counsel for Petitioner :- Brijesh Kumar Singh Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C. Hon'ble Manish Mathur,J. 1. Heard learned counsel for petitioner and learned State Counsel for opposite parties. 2. Petition has been filed challenging order dated 15.06.2025 whereby petitioner has been allegedly transferred from Divisional Office, Bareilly to Divisional Laboratory, Mirzapur. 3. It has been submitted that the impugned order has been passed in violation of paragraph 9 of the Government Order dated 06.05.2025 which provides for merit based online transfer system in accordance with Government Order dated 03.08.2023 which in turn prescribes quality marks to be provided in terms of the table indicated in the said Government order. It is submitted that neither paragraph 9 of the Government Order dated 06.05.2025 has been adhered to nor the Government Order dated 03.08.2023 inasmuch as there was no provision on the portal for providing any representation by the petitioner in pursuance thereof which could have required to opposite parties to provide quality point marks in terms of Government Order dated 03.08.2023. It is submitted that the opposite parties having failed to adhere to the aforesaid provision have therefore arbitrarily effected transfer by means of impugned order. It is also submitted that had such a provision been made available, petitioner would have been granted at least 20 marks for spousal posting and on medical ground which would have required him to remain posted at the current place. It is also submitted that currently there are 22 posts of Administrative Officers available out of which only 12 officers are currently employed on the said posts and therefore there was no difficulty in continuance of petitioner in the Head Office at Lucknow. 4. Learned counsel for petitioner has placed reliance on various judgments of this Court which is as under: "Param Singh & Ors. versus State of U.P. & Ors. reported in 2018 SCC Online All 5677, Sushil Mishra versus State of U.P & Ors. passed in Writ A No.6920 of 2025, Amit Singh Pal versus State of U.P. & Ors passed in Writ A No.6944 of 2025, Samar Srivastava versus Managing Director Madhyanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd. & Ors. passed in Writ A No.6910 of 2025, Smt. Sulekha Singh versus State of U.P. & Ors. passed in Writ A No.6300 of 2023, and Seema Verma versus State of U.P. & Ors. passed in Civil Misc Review Application No.170 of 2023." 5. Learned State counsel has been provided written instructions dated 01.07.2025, which are taken on record and on that basis submits that transfer could not be effected in terms of paragraph 9 of the Government Order dated 06.05.2025 since complete details of employees of the department were unavailable since such data was not updated by the employees. It is also submitted that impugned order has in fact been passed for purposes of posting of petitioner subsequent to his promotion on the post of Administrative Officer and is not as a measure of transfer. 6. Upon consideration of submissions advanced by learned counsel for parties and perusal of material on record, it appears that petitioner has been promoted on the post of Administrative Officer vide order dated 21.09.2024 with specific condition that posting orders would be separately issued. It appears that impugned order has been passed in pursuance of such promotion of petitioner and also indicates the same. Although the order also indicates that petitioner is being transferred but the said aspect appears to be incorrect in lieu of promotional order dated 21.09.2024 and particularly since no first posting order subsequent to 21.09.2024 and prior to impugned order is on record. 7. In view thereof, the impugned order having been passed in terms of first posting order subsequent to promotion, cannot be construed as a transfer. 8. However in view of submission of learned counsel for petitioner that out of 22 posts of Administrative Officers, only 12 are currently occupied, liberty is granted to petitioner to file a fresh representation before authority concerned for seeking continuance in his place of posting prior to passing of impugned order. Such representation shall be submitted to opposite party no.2 i.e. Commissioner, Food Safety & Drug Administration Department, Aliganj, Lucknow within a period of three days from today which shall be considered and decided expeditiously within a period of 10 days thereafter. 9. In case petitioner is not being relieved till date, impugned order so far as it pertains to petitioner shall be kept in abeyance till decision of petitioner's representation. 10. The petition stands disposed of. Order Date :- 3.7.2025 Subodh/- Digitally signed by :- SUBODH KUMAR SINGH High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench Digitally signed by :- SUBODH KUMAR SINGH High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench