Gender bias in staff split: Central Administrative Tribunal

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal on Thursday pointed out that the Centre had shown gender discrimination in the allotment of cadre of women IAS officers.

A two-member bench comprising B. Venkateswara Rao (judicial) and Ranjana Chowdary (admininistration) was dealing with petitions by several officers including women belonging to the All India Services challenging their allotments to either Telangana state or AP.

When the case of Ms K. Amrapali came up for hearing, the bench recalled the pleas of Ms Vani Prasad, Ms M. Prashant-hi and Ms Karuna Vakati. The three officers had moved the tribunal against their allotment to AP.

Stating that it had reserved orders on the cases of the three officers, the bench said the Centre’s response in their cases was “very strange” though the chief secretaries of both states had informed the Centre of the erroneous way in which their domicile status had been determined.

Ms Amrapali told the bench that the last-minute changes made in the swapping rules had resulted in her allotment to AP.

Ms Vani Prasad, Ms Prashanthi and Ms Karuna Vakati contended that despite their representation that their domicile status was wrongly recorded, the Centre had allotted them to AP.

Ms Ranjana Chowdary observed that this was a clear case of gender discrimination because the Centre had not heeded the states’ chief secretaries who had informed it of the error.

Hearing the case of IAS officer John Ross, who is seeking retention in Telangana state, the bench asked assistant solicitor-general B. Narayana Reddy why the authorities had failed to adhere to the seniority list prepared by the department of personnel and training.

The bench directed the Centre to file its reply case by case and posted the hearing to October 15.

Reacting to the allegations raised by Mr Ross the bench sought to know how the names of the juniors were brought forward by tinkering with the seniority list.