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Telangana HC rejects pleas on stay on IAS officers’ transfer
DoPT had ordered that these IAS officers from Telangana should report to the Andhra Pradesh government and those form Andhra Pradesh to the Telangana government by Wednesday evening
The Telangana high court on Wednesday dashed off the hopes of four IAS officers of Telangana and three from Andhra Pradesh to stay back in their respective states, against the orders of the Centre on their cadre transfer, people familiar with the matter said.
A high court bench headed by Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili turned down the lunch motion petitions filed separately by Vani Prasad, Vakati Karuna, Ronald Rose and Kata Amrapali from Telangana; and Ch Hari Kiran, Srijana Gummala, and Siva Sankar Lotheti from Andhra Pradesh, challenging the December 9 orders of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).
The central government’s DoPT had ordered that these IAS officers from Telangana should report to the Andhra Pradesh government and those form Andhra Pradesh to the Telangana government by Wednesday evening.
On Tuesday, these IAS officers challenged the DoPT orders before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), requesting that interim orders be issued retaining them in their present cadre and DoPT be directed to revoke its orders. They argued that DoPT had not taken their pleas into consideration while passing the orders.
However, the CAT refused to entertain their request for a stay on the DoPT orders and asked them to report to the respective allotted states before the deadline. It posted the matter to November 4 for further hearing.
As the deadline for their reporting to their allotted states would end by Wednesday evening, these IAS officers moved lunch motion petitions before the Telangana high court, requesting a stay on the DoPT orders and a direction to the state governments not to relieve them till the CAT passed the final orders.
However, Justice Shavili struck down their petitions saying that the issue would never get resolved if it continued to grant stay till their petitions in the CAT were disposed of. He asked the IAS officers to report to their respective allotted states first, pending disposal of their petitions.
The bench said the Centre would decide where to post the IAS officers. “If necessary, the court will ask DoPT to reconsider your requests. But for now, you should report to your allotted states,” the judge said.
Last week, DoPT rejected the request of five Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and three Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, who were allocated to the Andhra Pradesh cadre following the bifurcation of the state in 2014.
DoPT has directed IAS officers Vakati Karuna (2004 batch), Ronald Rose (2006), Vani Prasad (1995) and Amrapali Kata (2010), M Prashanti (2009) and IPS officers Anjani Kumar (1990), Abhilasha Bisht (1994), and Abhishek Mohanty (2011) to join the Andhra Pradesh government by October 16.
It has also ordered four IAS officers of the Telangana cadre serving in Andhra Pradesh to join the Telangana government. They are IAS officers SS Rawat, Ch Hari Kiran, Srijana Gummala and Siva Sankar Lotheti.
These IAS and IPS officers, who were allotted Telangana and Andhra Pradesh state cadres by a high-level committee, headed by Pratyusha Sinha in 2014, have been fighting a legal battle with DoPT, challenging the committee guidelines.
On January 3, 2024, the Telangana high court upheld the Pratyush Sinha committee guidelines and asked DoPT to look into the grievances of the IAS and IPS officers who opposed cadre allocation.
DoPT constituted a one-man committee with a retired IAS officer Deepak Khandekar, who heard their grievances and held that their claims were not in accordance with the guidelines. As a result, DoPT issued an order on October 9, asking them to move to their respective allotted states.
