E-Paper
T’gana HC orders shifting of chief secretary to Andhra Pradesh cadre
The bench, of chief justice Ujjal Bhuyan and justice Surepalli Nanda, which was hearing a writ petition filed by the department of personnel and training (DoPT) of the Union ministry of personnel and public grievances, set aside the CAT order passed on March 9, 2016, allocating Somesh Kumar to Telangana cadre.
The Telangana high court on Tuesday set aside the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order (Hyderabad Bench) and directed shifting of senior IAS officer and state chief secretary Somesh Kumar from Telangana cadre to Andhra Pradesh, as allotted by the Centre during the bifurcation of combined Andhra Pradesh state in 2014.
The bench, of chief justice Ujjal Bhuyan and justice Surepalli Nanda, which was hearing a writ petition filed by the department of personnel and training (DoPT) of the Union ministry of personnel and public grievances, set aside the CAT order passed on March 9, 2016, allocating Somesh Kumar to Telangana cadre.
The bench had earlier reserved its verdict in July 2022 after the Union government challenged the CAT order allowing the chief secretary to continue in Telangana.
The high court bench also refused to entertain the request of senior lawyer M Avinash Reddy, counsel for Somesh Kumar, to keep the judgement in abeyance for a period of three weeks to enable the chief secretary to avail his legal remedy and directed that the judgement “comes into effect immediately”.
The bench felt that “the CAT had erred in interfering with the allocation of Somesh Kumar to Andhra Pradesh”. It found fault with the CAT for saying that “the division of the cadre between the two successor states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh was illegal and arbitrary”.
The bench, however, said as per Rule 6(1) of the Indian Administrative Service (Regulations of Seniority) Rules, 1987 read with Rule 10 of the Indian Administrative Service (Probation) Rules, 1954, seniority of Somesh Kumar will not be disturbed and will remain the same.
The bench said allocation to a cadre is “an incidence of service” and “no officer has a vested right to claim allotment to a particular cadre”.
In 2014, the central government had appointed Pratyush Sinha committee to oversee the division of the cadre exercise through a set of guidelines that formed the basis for allotting the existing IAS, IPS and other All India Services (AIS) officers to the two successor states of Telangana and Andhra.
Accordingly, Somesh Kumar, who was then commissioner of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), was allotted Andhra Pradesh cadre. He challenged the same before the CAT, which ordered that he be retained in Telangana. Since then, he held several positions before being promoted as the chief secretary.
Later in the evening, Centre issued orders relieving Kumar from the duties in Telangana and asked him to report to the Andhra Pradesh government by January 12.
