Hyderabad: Siva Sankar Lotheti has been in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) for nearly 12 years, but the disconcerting dilemma over his cadre persists to this day.
In a turn of events over his allocation to Telangana by the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT), the Hyderabad Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), on 28 February this year, revoked the DoPT order and directed that Lotheti, a 2013-batch IAS officer, be sent to his home state, Andhra Pradesh.
Earlier in October 2024, following an order passed by the Telangana High Court, the DoPT under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions had asked the officer to repatriate to Telangana from Andhra Pradesh. Lotheti complied, but then challenged the DoPT order before the CAT and had it overturned. However, the DoPT has not yet implemented the tribunal’s order.
After Lotheti challenged the DoPT delay, charging the central watchdog that monitors the service conditions, postings and transfers of IAS officers with contempt, the CAT on 9 April this year set a four-week deadline for the DoPT to implement its order “in its letter and true spirit”. The CAT bench’s administrative member, Varun Sindhu Kul Kaumudi and judicial member Dr Lata Baswaraj Patne have listed the case for 5 June to verify compliance.
Though he was allotted to Telangana in the 2014 cadre redistribution exercise, following the AP bifurcation, Lotheti was functioning in Andhra Pradesh, a state he hails from and his choice, till October 2024 based on a CAT order from 10 years ago.
However, for the past six months, Lotheti has been in Telangana. Firstly, he was the CEO of the Aarogyasri health insurance scheme and has, since 20 February this year, been attached to the general administration department.
His is not a one-off case. Over a decade since the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, the fate of seven other IAS and three IPS officers has also been hanging in the balance. The high court and the CAT have been examining their cases. Based on their rulings, the DoPT passes orders, and the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments implement them.
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Other cases
While Lotheti is waiting to return to Andhra Pradesh, Ronald Rose, a 2006-batch IAS officer, wishes to return to Telangana. Last week, the CAT quashed the DoPT’s October order, which allotted Rose to Andhra Pradesh.
Hearing his case, the bench of Kaumudi and Dr Patne reportedly directed the DoPT to allot him the Telangana cadre within four weeks. Rose has been a secretary in Andhra Pradesh finance department since 11 November, 2024.
Other IAS officers going through similar ordeals are also awaiting the outcome of their respective cases as the CAT looks into them. The officers were distributed between the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana cadres in 2014 post-bifurcation, following the Pratyush Sinha Committee recommendations.
Challenging their final allotments, nearly a dozen IAS officers, including former Telangana chief secretary Somesh Kumar and IPS officers in the undivided Andhra Pradesh cadre, have obtained relief from the tribunal to function in the state of their choice.
Kumar, the Bharat Rashtra Samithi regime’s blue-eyed bureaucrat, exited the service in 2023 after the HC quashed an earlier CAT order that had allowed him to function in Telangana since 2014. He reported to the Andhra Pradesh government in January 2023, but then took voluntary retirement from service in April, later joining as then-chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s chief adviser in a cabinet rank.
The central government had in 2017 challenged the CAT orders, which provided relief to Somesh and all other officers, in the Telangana High Court.
While the Somesh episode was over in 2023, in January 2024, reviewing the other cases, the Telangana High Court 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 politically significant Somesh Kumar case triggered our pending cases, resulting in our repatriation, too,” one IAS officer rued.
Nevertheless, the court had then asked the Centre to take note of the aggrieved officers, who already had spent a decade in the state of their choice. The HC, at the time, ordered personal hearings for respondents or officers so that they could raise legal aspects before being handed down orders, according to the law.
However, the DoPT, in October last year, rejected the claims of the challenging officers. The department took the step based on recommendations of a committee it formed, with Deepak Khandekar, IAS (retd.), a former secretary with the DoPT, as the only member on the panel. The panel was formed to reconsider, according to the Sinha Committee guidelines and recommendations, the IAS officers’ final allocations.
Thus, Vani Prasad, a 1995-batch IAS and principal secretary of youth affairs, tourism and culture in Telangana; Vakati Karuna, a 2004-batch IAS officer and secretary of the women, children, disabled, and senior citizens welfare department in Telangana; Ronald Rose (2006 batch), the secretary of the energy department in Telangana; and Amrapali Kata, a 2010-batch IAS officer and commissioner of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) switched to the Andhra Pradesh side.
On the other hand, Chevvuru Hari Kiran, a 2009-batch IAS officer and director of the Commissionerate of Health and Family Welfare, Andhra Pradesh; Srijana Gummalla, a 2013-batch IAS officer and collector and district magistrate (DM) of NTR, Andhra Pradesh; and Siva Sankar Lotheti, a 2013-batch IAS officer and collector and DM, Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh, arrived at Telangana.
In February, the MHA also ordered the relocation to Andhra Pradesh of former Telangana director general of police (DGP) Anjani Kumar, a 1990-batch IPS officer who then was chairman of the state road safety authority; Abhilasha Bisht, a 1994-batch IPS officer and director of Telangana State Police Academy; and Abhishek Mohanty, a 2011-batch IPS officer and police commissioner of Karimnagar.
Most of the above-mentioned IAS-IPS officers, while complying with the orders, again went to the CAT to challenge their relocation.
Mohanty obtained a stay order from the high court in March to remain in Telangana till the CAT resolved his petition challenging the MHA orders sending him back to AP.
However, a couple of officers are said to have or are coming to terms with their present postings and are averse to further legal fights.
In 2014, the aforementioned IAS and IPS officers individually challenged their cadre allocation before the CAT, putting forward their respective grievances on the Pratyush Sinha committee recommendations.
Post-2014 bifurcation, the committee suggested the distribution of 284 IAS, 209 IPS and 136 IFoS officers between the two Telugu states.
At the time, Lotheti had objected to his domicile, which, he complained, was arbitrarily determined during the final allocation in 2014, contrary to his declaration that he hails from Andhra Pradesh.
Rose’s grievance, similar to Bisht’s, was over an erroneous seniority determination, putting them in Andhra Pradesh. Kata claimed 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, complained of erroneous implementation, saying that the committee denied him a Telangana cadre, the state he was born and brought up. The IPS officer served as superintendent of police (SP), Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh, till 2021 before Telangana took him in based on CAT orders.
Speaking to ThePrint, retired IAS officer I.Y.R. Krishna Rao admitted that the Pratyush Sinha committee, of which, as Andhra Pradesh chief secretary, he was a part, “was unfair in some and erroneous in other cases while determining the cadres”.
“The committee was neither neutral nor fair, resulting in distortions in allocations and long drawn out legal cases. The CAT also took a long time to settle these cases. After 10 years it matters little who is where. The DoPT should have allowed them to stay where they were,” said Rao.
Speaking to ThePrint, a senior IAS officer in the same quandary as Lotheti, Rose, and the others said, “People look up to us in the society, but look at us; we have become ping-pong balls between the two states. Even with genuine grievances and testimonies for them, we are running from pillar to post to get our rightful cadre.”
“It has been ten years, and it is tiring. But I will keep up my fight for what is duly mine. I pray that the authorities will act graciously, at least now, and let us be at peace, allowing us to operate to our full capabilities, fulfilling our duties towards society,” said the officer.
Another officer said: “With the latest CAT orders in the Lotheti and Rose cases, we have come full circle.”
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)