Telangana High Court on Wednesday remanded the issue of allocation of 13 All India Service officers to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh back to the Department of Personnel and Training of the Union government.
A bench of Justices Abhinand Kumar Shavili and N. Rajeshwar Rao, disposing of 13 writ petitions filed by the DoPT challenging the orders issued by Central Administrative Tribunal-Hyderabad allocating them to Telangana, directed the officers concerned to make detailed representations to the DoPT explaining their grievances. The bench said the DoPT would examine each case of the officers separately and take a call in accordance with the guidelines framed by the Pratyusha Sinha Committee. The DoPT should give a personal hearing to each of the officer before taking a final call on the matter, the bench said.
The bench noted that it had considered the rival submissions of the parties in the matter and perused records. Earlier in a similar matter, a bench of the HC headed by the then Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice Surepalli Nanda pronounced verdict stating that the CAT-Hyderabad had erred in interfering with the matter of the allocation of AIS officers to a State and allocation of the then Chief Secretary of Telangana Somesh Kumar (who was allotted to AP by the DoPT) to Telangana. The bench had set aside the CAT order allocating Somesh Kumar to Telangana following which he had been sent to AP.
