Hyderabad: CAT sets aside split of babus by Pratyush

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal on Tuesday quashed the allotment of 15 All India Service Officers belonging to IAS and IPS cadres as part of distribution of officers of AIS between AP and Telangana after the state’s division.

While allowing the petitions of the AIS officers challenging their allotment by the Centre, a two-member bench comprising B. Venkateswara Rao (judicial) and Ranjana Chowdary (administration), found fault with the Centre, the states of AP and TS and the Pratyush Sinha Committee for preparing faulty guidelines for dividing the AIS officers between the two states.

The bench, while quashing the allotment of former GHMC commissioner Somesh Kumar to AP cadre, directed the authorities to treat him as a TS Cadre officer.

The bench also quashed the allotment orders of IAS officers C. Harikiran, Siva Sankar Lahoti and Srijana Gummalla and directed the authorities to treat them as AP cadre officers.

Pratyush panel set aside by CAT
Quashing the allotment of 15 All India Service Officers belonging to IAS and IPS cadres as part of distribution of officers of AIS between AP and Telangana, the Central Administrative Tribunal also set aside the allotment orders of IAS officers Mr Ronald Ross, Mr G. Anantha Ramu, Mr S.S. Ravat, Ms Amrapali Kata, Ms Karuna Vakati, Ms A Vani Prasad and Ms Mallela Prasanthi to Telangana.

The bench considered the contentions of Mr Anantha Ramu and Mr Rawat that the authorities had wrongly shown senior IAS officer Mr J.R. Anand as an outsider to AP despite him being a native of Rajahmundry and due to this act of the authorities they had been affected.

The Bench also quashed the allotment orders of IPS officers Mr Santhosh Mehra, Ms Abhilasha Bisht and Mr Anjani Kumar to Telangana and Mr A.V. Ranganath to AP.

The Bench made it clear that it was for quashing of the whole set of guidelines prepared by the Pratyush Sinha Committee, but keeping in view the completion of the cadre allotment exercise, it had refrained itself from doing so.

It found fault with the authorities in accommodating former chief secretary P.K. Mohanty in the Pratyush Sinha Committee despite knowing that his kin were awaiting cadre division.

It also faulted the authorities in not showing Mr Mohanty in the list of serving officers as on June 1, 2014. Even though he was retiring on the day, the rules mandate that his name should be included in the list of serving officers as on that day. The Bench observed that non-inclusion of his name had resulted in the change of cadre for several others.