HYDERABAD: Deputy Solicitor General Gade Praveen Kumar, representing the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Union of India, New Delhi, urged the division bench of the Telangana High Court comprising Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili and Justice Pulla Karthik to adjudicate a batch of writ petitions filed by the DoPT.
These petitions contested the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Hyderabad, dated March 29, 2016, which allocated 13 All India Services (AIS) officers to Telangana State, originally allotted to Andhra Pradesh after the bifurcation of the State.
Gade Praveen Kumar informed the court that a bench comprising former Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice S Nanda had passed orders directing the former Chief Secretary of Telangana State, Somesh Kumar, to report back to Andhra Pradesh. The CJ-led bench had found fault with the CAT’s order that allocated Somesh Kumar to Telangana.
The Deputy Solicitor General argued that the order in Somesh Kumar’s case should apply to all IPS and IAS officers currently working in Telangana, who were originally allotted to Andhra Pradesh. However, other senior counsels present in the court, including Jonnalagadda Sudhir Kumar, strongly opposed this contention, stating that the Somesh Kumar case does not apply to the other AIS officers working in Telangana.
Dr Lakshmi Narasimha, senior counsel representing one of the petitioners, argued that the Union government lacks the locus to appear in this batch of writ petitions. He pointed out that there are several pending cases in the high court where the Union Government does not appear, and its sudden interest in this batch of writs from 2017 raises questions. Dr Narasimha further emphasised that all counsels should be heard individually as the contentions vary from case to case. He asserted that the Somesh Kumar judgement is not applicable to the remaining batch of writ petitions, as this aspect was made clear by former Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court, Ujjal Bhuyan.
A Santosh Kumar, a special government pleader attached to the Advocate General, Telangana Office, informed the court that a review petition has been filed seeking a review of the order passed by the then Chief Justice bench headed by Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, which found fault with the allotment of Somesh Kumar to Telangana. The review petition is currently pending before the bench of Chief Justice.
Jonnalagadda Sudheer Kumar, senior counsel representing one of the AIS officers in the batch of writ petitions, argued that the AIS officers currently working in State based on the CAT 2016 order are functioning smoothly with the Telangana government, and there are no issues raised by either Andhra Pradesh or Telangana in this regard. Hence, the urgency sought by the Union government through DoPT for an immediate hearing of these cases seems unwarranted.
The CAT, Hyderabad Branch, had issued orders on March 29, 2016, allocating various IPS and IAS officers, including Anjani Kumar, Abhilasha Bhisht, Santosh Mehra, AV Ranganath, Abhishek Mohanty, C Hari Kiran, D Donald Rose, and others to Telangana. The case has been adjourned for two weeks for further proceedings.