Hyderabad: More than a decade since the composite state bifurcation and division of All India Services (AIS) cadre between the resultant Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, over 10 Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers are now being asked by the Centre to repatriate to the other side.
These officers were apportioned either to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in 2014 but have been functioning in the other state all these years.
Challenging their final allotments made in accordance with the Pratyush Sinha Committee recommendations in 2014, around a dozen IAS and IPS officers borne on undivided cadres of Andhra Pradesh state had obtained relief from the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) to function in the state of their choice.
But now, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions—the central watchdog monitoring the service conditions, postings and transfers of AIS officers—has rejected the claims of the challenging officers, following an order passed by the Telangana High Court in January this year.
The IAS officers directed to report to Andhra Pradesh are Vani Prasad (1995 batch), principal secretary of youth affairs, tourism and culture in Telangana; Vakati Karuna (2004 batch), secretary of the Women, Children, Disabled, and Senior Citizens Welfare department in Telangana; Ronald Rose (2006 batch), secretary of Telangana’s energy department; M Prashanti (2009 batch), additional secretary of the Environment, Forest, Science and Technology department in Telangana; and Amrapali Kata (2010 batch), commissioner, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).
The IAS officers asked to switch to Telangana are Chevvuru Hari Kiran (2009 batch), director, Commissionerate of Health and Family Welfare, Andhra Pradesh; Srijana Gummalla (2013 batch), collector and DM, NTR district, Andhra Pradesh; and Siva Sankar Lotheti (2013 batch), collector and DM, Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh.
A DoPT communication addressed to one of the above-mentioned officers says that he stands relieved from the Telangana state government with immediate effect. “He is to be directed to join the State Government of Andhra Pradesh latest by 16.10.2024,” a copy of the order dated 9 October addressed to the Chief Secretary, Telangana said.
ThePrint has accessed the document.
While the DoPT asked the chief secretaries of the respective states for a compliance report in this regard, several of the officers in question ThePrint spoke to expressed their unwillingness to relocate and repatriate to their cadre state. A few avowed to keep up the legal fight, challenging the latest DoPT orders. “I have been fighting for the last 10 years and I will stay the course for my rights,” one of the IAS officers told ThePrint.
Similar orders will be issued through the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to three IPS officers currently serving in Telangana, and required to repatriate to Andhra Pradesh cadre.
These three are: former Telangana director general of police (DGP) Anjani Kumar (1990 batch), currently posted as chairman of state road safety authority; Abhilasha Bisht (1994 batch), director, Telangana State Police Academy; and Abhishek Mohanty (2011 batch), police commissioner, Karimnagar, Telangana.
“I haven’t received any orders yet. Once I have a copy, I will discuss the next steps with my lawyer,” a senior IPS officer told ThePrint Saturday.
Each of the aforementioned eight IAS and three IPS officers had earlier challenged their cadre allocation before the CAT, and put forward their respective grievances over the Pratyush Sinha panel guidelines. Post the bifurcation, the committee, in 2014, administered distribution of 284 IAS, 209 IPS and 136 IFoS officers between the two Telugu states.
For instance, Gummalla’s objection is to her domicile “arbitrarily” being determined as Hyderabad/Telangana during the final allocation in 2014, against her declaration of Chittoor/Andhra Pradesh.
Kata claimed that the Pratyush Sinha committee followed a different yardstick in her case, denying her an opportunity to swap cadres with another IAS officer.
Mohanty’s petition, while not challenging the guidelines, complains of erroneous implementation of the same, saying that the committee denied him a Telangana cadre, the state he was born and brought up in. The IPS officer served as superintendent of police (SP), Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh till 2021, before Telangana took him in based on CAT orders.
Hari Kiran argued that he was selected as an IAS in the unreserved category but was given a Telangana cadre considering his reservation status.
The central government had in 2017 challenged the CAT orders, which provided relief to these officers, in the Telangana High Court. Hearing the Centre’s petitions, the court, in January, disposed of all petitions related to the allotments, while upholding the Pratyush Sinha panel guidelines and criticising CAT’s overreach of setting aside cadre allotments.
“The tribunal was not justified in allocating respondents/officers to the states on its own. The tribunal ought to have remanded the matter to the Union of India to re-examine each and every individual case in terms of the observations made by it and also pass appropriate orders strictly in accordance with the approved guidelines,” the court order said.
The high court further said that the officers’ cases deserve to be reconsidered for final allocation strictly in accordance with the guidelines framed based on the Pratyush Sinha Committee recommendations.
Asking the Centre to take note of aggrieved officers having spent a decade already in the state of their choice, it directed that the respondents/officers be granted a personal hearing to raise legal aspects before orders are passed in accordance with the law.
So, in compliance with the directions, the DoPT, in March, constituted a single-member committee for reconsideration of final allocation of these AIS officers in accordance with the Pratyush Sinha Committee guidelines and recommendations. The single-member committee had Deepak Khandekar, IAS (retd.), former secretary, DoPT.
After considering the officers’ submissions and personal hearings, the Khandekar committee recommended the DoPT to reject the pleas of those who sought cadre allottment in the state they are presently serving in.
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‘Unfair to uproot them now’
The orders come at a time when both Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are facing a dearth of IAS officers to manage the state administration. Soon after taking over in mid-June, the Chandrababu Naidu-led coalition government reportedly asked the DoPT to quickly send all the Andhra Pradesh cadre officers still serving in Telangana to Andhra Pradesh.
The hearings of certain officers, including Rose, were held in the second half of June.
A senior bureaucrat in the Telangana General Administration Department (GAD) told ThePrint that “relieving a big number of experienced IAS, IPS officers in one go will severely handicap the administration”.
Speaking to ThePrint, L.V. Subrahmanyam, who was Andhra Pradesh chief secretary during Jagan Mohan Reddy’s tenure, said he was of the opinion that the Centre should have let the officers continue functioning where they are as per their choice, “especially after an absurdly long CAT-court litigation and its negligence hindering speedy disposal”.
“These officers have spent the last 10 years, about one third of their civil service, in Andhra Pradesh or Telangana, gaining vast knowledge, experience of sectors and aspects, and working with the set of politicians in the respective state. What’s the point of uprooting them now? It will be unfair,” he remarked.
The former president of Andhra Pradesh IAS Association doubted if the repatriated officers would be able to strike a good chord after resisting to join the respective state all this while. “Even if they go, there would be concerns about good postings, and anxieties about whether they would be treated with warmth,” he told ThePrint.
“Some officers apparently preferred Telangana because of the vastly developed, booming city of Hyderabad, rich with educational and employment opportunities for spouses and children. Some might have had some cadre-seniority calculations,” the retired IAS officer, who lives in Hyderabad, added.
Officers on both sides, disgruntled by DoPT orders, it is understood, have begun lobbying to stay put in their place of work now, even as they mull approaching the court or CAT again. Those in Telangana have reportedly met chief secretary Santhi Kumari while three IAS officers in Andhra Pradesh met CM Naidu Friday to lobby support.
One solution to the predicament could be inter-state deputation, if both Naidu and Telangana CM Revanth Reddy mutually consent and convey their decision to the DoPT.
Somesh Kumar case
The present batch of IAS repatriation would follow that of Telangana chief secretary Somesh Kumar in January 2023. Somesh (1989-batch IAS officer), now retired from service, too was allotted Andhra Pradesh but chose to remain in Telangana.
However, the Telangana High Court in January last year quashed the CAT’s 2016 judgment allowing Somesh to function in Telangana.
Moving swiftly, the DoPT passed orders the same day, relieving Somesh from state’s service and directing him to join the Andhra Pradesh government within two days.
Considered a blue-eyed civil servant during the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) regime, Somesh was appointed Telangana chief secretary in December 2019, by the then CM K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR), in a decision superseding some senior IAS officers at the time.
Welcoming the court and DoPT’s orders last year, the then Telangana BJP chief Bandi Sanjay alleged Kumar was engaged by KCR for political gains and vested interests.
Somesh reported to the Andhra Pradesh government in accordance with DoPT orders and met with CM Jagan, but soon took voluntary retirement scheme (VRS). In May 2023, he was given a cabinet-rank position in Telangana by being appointed KCR’s chief advisor.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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