Five IAS officers challenge DoPT orders on cadre allocation in Telangana HC
Hyderabad: Five IAS officers, Vakati Karuna, Amrapali Kata, Srijana Gummala, A. Vani Prasad and Ronald Rose, approached the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), challenging the recent orders of the Centre’s department of personnel and training (DoPT), rejecting their request for a change of cadre from the state to which they were allocated originally.
A CAT bench at Hyderabad, comprising Dr Lata Baswaraj Patne and Shalini Misra, will hear their applications. They made the DoPT, chief secretaries of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh as respondents.
Karuna, Kata, Prasad and Rose were allocated to AP in 2014 as per the AP Reorganisation Act. They were working in Telangana cadre, while Srujana, originally allocated to Telangana cadre, was working with the Andhra Pradesh cadre. They all wish to continue in the present places of posting.
After a decade-long litigation before CAT and the High Court, the Telangana HC directed the DoPT to consider the requests of the officers after hearing them personally.
Following the HC orders, DoPT constituted a one-man committee of Deepak Khandekar, a retired IAS officer, which heard the officers. The DoPT rejected their applications on October 9.
Aggrieved with the orders, the IAS officers mentioned that their earlier allocations were stopped by the CAT in 2016, which were neither reversed nor stayed by the Telangana High Court, when the DoPT had challenged the CAT orders.
Separately, a group of Andhra Pradesh-cadre IAS officers working in Telangana met Chief Secretary A. Santhi Kumari at the Secretariat on Monday to discuss their concerns regarding recent orders to report back to Andhra Pradesh. Among those present were GHMC commissioner Amrapali Kata, energy department secretary Ronald Ross and women, children, disabled and senior citizens secretary Vakati Karuna.
According to official sources, they urged the Chief Secretary not to issue relieving orders, which would transfer them back to the Andhra Pradesh cadre. The DoPT directive requires them to report to the Andhra Pradesh government by October 16.
The officers have reportedly sought interim directions from CAT to allow them to continue serving in the Telangana cadre while their case is pending. The chief secretary is said to have assured the officers that she would consult Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy before taking any decision regarding their relieving orders.