Justify plea, GHMC chief Somesh Kumar told

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal on Wednesday asked GHMC commissioner Somesh Kumar to explain how he would sustain his challenge of his cadre allotment to AP in view of two previous court judgements regarding division of staff that were cited by the Centre

A two-member bench comprising B. Venkateswara Rao (judicial) and Ranjana Chowdary (administration) was hearing a batch of petitions by Mr Kumar and several IAS and IPS officers who have challenged their cadre allotment.

The bench asked Mr Kumar to justify his plea in view of a Supreme Court judgement, cited by the Centre, in which the apex court held that no bureaucrat has a legal right to demand a place of his choice to work and that he has to go wherever he is posted.

The Centre placed before the CAT, the judgement of the Jharkhand High Court which held that when as many as 378 All India Service officers were divided between Bihar and Jharkhand and only 17 officers had grievances, the authorities have to look at the purpose of the whole exercise.

Referring to the judgement, the bench told counsel appearing for Mr Kumar that in the case of AP and Telangana, a majority of AIS appear to have  accepted the division of cadre by the Centre, which divided 638 officers between AP and Telangana states and only 16 officers had raised any grievance.

Submitting that in view of the common purpose to be achieved, the authorities can ignore the objections of a few officers, however genuine their grievance may be. Counsel appearing for the Centre said that the general purpose of the exercise should be considered rather than the individual grievances. The bench adjourned the matter to Monday while asking Mr Kumar’s counsel to answer the two questions.