The transfer orders, signed by the chief secretary, followed on March 12. Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal expressed surprise that the state government did not ask for time for filing affidavits in response to the affidavit filed by Bhatia yesterday. Bhatia in his affidavit had claimed that the large scale demolitions carried out by him of illegal structures belonging to influential persons ``including the son in law of the previous Chief Minister and a member of Parliament,'' and a four-star hotel Holiday Inn had led to his transfer, which he called``punitive.''

The division bench of Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice S Radhakrishnan is hearing four public interest petitions against the transfer of Arun Bhatia from the post of municipal commissioner of Pune less than two weeks after his appointment on March 3.

Counsel for the chief minister argued that when newspaper cuttings about the leaked letters were presented to Rane he had three options before him. First to ask the chief secretary (CS) to take action against him. But, since the chief secretary was targeted in these letters, it would have looked improper. The second option was to suspend Bhatia, which Bhatia being an upright officer was not considered. The chief minister then exercised the only option left, that was to transfer Bhatia and institute a departmental enquiry against him.

However, Advacate Iqbal Chagla, who is representing petitioners Sunanda Das and others, urged the court to ``pass adverse remarks against the chief secretary,'' or ``direct him to file an affidavit'' forhis ``eloquent absence'' in the case. The state government has filed an affidavit through the principal secretary (general administration) Navin Kumar. ``Even in this affidavit, only one point was stressed, which is that the transfer was an administrative decision,'' despaired Chagla.

Chagla read out the note that the Chief Minister had written to the chief secretary asking that Bhatia be transferred in the light of some confidential letters written by him (Rane) to the chief secretary appearing in some local newspapers. Chagla wondered if there could be any ``cogent reasoning'' in such an order. ``How does a departmental enquiry in any way affect the working of the corporation?'' he asked, ``Was Bhatia working against the interests of the corporation?''

He argued that Bhatia's transfer was effected against the government's own circular which said that an officer should not be transferred within a year of his appointment, unless under exceptional cases for which reasons have to be recorded. He also readout of the All India Service Rules and remarked that ``transfers were not listed even as a penalty.''

However, the Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal asked Chagla to satisfy the court that there was any public interest involved in the matter. ``Can there be any public interest in a transfer even if it violated the guidelines or was punitive? That should be between the officer and the state government,'' the Chief Justice observed.

To this, Chagla said that it had to do with the public perception of a man who was honest and hardworking which suffers a loss of morale if ``persons of integrity are transferred on `specious' grounds. ``I will satisfy the court that they are `specious' grounds...It is the greatest violence to the public and public administration,'' he added.

Chagla claimed that if the court were to shut down its doors on public interests of such kind ``which examine the government action. How else was the public to learn about such administrative orders where even reasons are unexplained. Forpurposes of finding if the letters were leaked, was it necessary to remove Bhatia him from office?'' he asked.

He also drew the attention of the court to the hike in salary given to Bhatia in his recent posting as the commissioner, Archives. ``The public has to pay for the state's decision to transfer him? The transfer is sought to be camouflaged by raising the salary,'' he argued.

While urging that the bench order the chief secretary to file an affidavit, Chagla said that otherwise he might have to ask the court to draw inferences. Chief Justice Sabharwal too observed that the court was not keen on rushing through a petition of such importance from the public point of view and ordered that the chief minister and the chief secretary file affidavits in this regard. The matter has now been posted to April 12.