Telangana HC orders 4 IAS officers to join duties in Andhra Pradesh

Hyderabad, Oct 16 The Telangana High Court on Wednesday declined to interfere with the orders of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and directed IAS officers of Andhra Pradesh cadre to immediately join duties in the state as directed by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).

Taking up petitions filed by four Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers, seeking directions not to relieve them till November 4 when their petitions will come up for hearing in the CAT, the High Court told the officers that if it goes no granting stays, the matter will never come to an end.

The court asked Ronald Rose, Vani Prasad, Amrapali Kata, and Karuna Vakati to immediately join duties in Andhra Pradesh as directed by CAT on Tuesday following last week's orders by the DoPT.

The IAS officers received no relief from the CAT’s Hyderabad branch, which asked them to join the duties in Andhra Pradesh as directed by the DoPT.

The DoPT on October 10 issued orders, relieving the five IAS officials (including one officer currently serving in Andhra Pradesh) from their current postings and directing them to join their respective state cadres on Monday (October 16).

The CAT asked the officers to join the duties as directed by DoPT till further orders.

The petitioners argued that the DoPT has not taken into consideration the recommendations of a one-man committee. The officers also argue that the approach of the Pratyush Sinha Committee, which was responsible for the bifurcation of cadres between the two Telugu states, was flawed. They also submitted that the DoPT did not take into account their 10-year experience.

The CAT asked DoPT to submit a detailed report by the first week of November, addressing the grievances raised by the officers.

The DoPT had last week rejected the claim of eight All India Service (AIS) officers - five from the IAS and three from the Indian Police Service (IPS) - to allocate Telangana cadre to them.

These officers were allocated to the Andhra Pradesh cadre following the bifurcation of the state in 2014 but they had challenged this and had requested that they be allocated Telangana cadre.

The decision was taken by the DoPT following a recommendation by a single-member committee comprising former DoPT Secretary Deepak Khandekar, which was constituted to reconsider the final allocation of the AIS officers.

Following the bifurcation of united Andhra Pradesh into two separate states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in 2014, the Union government had re-allotted IAS and IPS officers working in the undivided state to the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh and the newly created Telangana.

Some of the officers had challenged their reallocation and approached the CAT, which had ruled in their favour. The DoPT had challenged the CAT orders in the High Court.

The Telangana High Court in its order of January 3, 2024, had ruled that the cases of the AIS officers should be reconsidered for final allocation in accordance with the guidelines framed on the basis of the recommendations of Pratyush Sinha committee between the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Acting on the High Court, the DoPT had constituted the Khandekar committee in March 2024 for reconsideration of the final allocation.

Source: IANS