The Union government on Tuesday charged the Telangana government with changing its stance over distribution of officers belonging to All India Services (AIS) (IAS, IPS, and other services) among the two newly formed states, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, in June 2014.
Addressing a bench of Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice S Nanda that was hearing a batch of petitions filed by the Centre’s department of personnel and training (DOPT) challenging a 2016 order of Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) that found fault with the Centre’s decision in respect of 16 officers, additional solicitor general T Surya Karan Reddy said that the state sailed with the Centre at CAT and adopted the stand that “the Centre is the sole cadre dividing authority”.
The bench said it would review cases of each officer separately and commenced hearing in case filed by Centre against Telangana officers. The additional SG said that the state was now opposing the Centre. “It is speaking in terms of domain experience gained by the officers in Telangana and the efficiency they are displaying in administering the state. The administration won’t be paralyzed even if they are shifted to the state allotted to them. If the state is so particular about them, it can always seek an inter-cadre transfer of those officials,” Surya Karan Reddy said.
Pleas of officers who remained in state of their choice with help of CAT order and pleas of the state to retain them cannot be considered by HC.
The Pratyush Sinha Committee, which oversaw division of officials at time of bifurcation, prepared detailed guidelines to facilitate division, the Centre’s counsel said. “That is the reason why, though over 700 officers were divided between both the states, only a little over a dozen cases were filed in the courts,” he added.
The CAT that ruled in favour of a few aggrieved officers did not discuss where the cadre rules or the AIS Act was violated, but merely said they were violated, Surya Karan said. “Whether it is the swapping facility, the insider, outsider ratio, or the roster rules, the committee went strictly in accordance with the guidelines. This court can examine the constitutional validity of those guidelines,” he added.
Referring to allegation that then chief secretary PK Mohanty was unduly inducted into Pratyush Sinha Committee despite likelihood of him being biased because his own daughter and son-in-law were in list of officers, additional SG said CAT said it did not come across any evidence to that effect. But said he should have refrained from being a part of it. Mohanty’s name was not included in list of officers to be divided because he was retiring on June 1, 2014, he said. The bench posted the case to April 4 for hearing the version of Somesh Kumar.
