Hyderabad: In a setback to at least eight All India Service (AIS) officers who had been serving in Telangana, the Union Government has rejected their request for allocating the Telangana cadre to them.
The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) rejected the request of five Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and three Indian Police Service (IPS) officers, who were allocated to the Andhra Pradesh cadre following the bifurcation of the state in 2014 but they had challenged the move and had requested that they be allocated Telangana cadre.
The decision was taken by the Ministry following the recommendation by a single-member committee comprising former DoPT Secretary Deepak Khandekar, which was constituted to reconsider the final allocation of AIS officers.
The DoPT has directed IAS officers Vakati Karuna (2004 batch), Ronald Rose (2006), Vani Prasad (1995) and Amrapali Kata (2010), M. Prashanti (2009) and IPS officers Anjani Kumar (1990), Abhilasha Bisht (1994), and Abhishek Mohanty (2011) to join the Andhra Pradesh government by October 16.
It has also ordered AIS officers of the Telangana cadre serving in Andhra Pradesh to join the Telangana government. They are IAS officers S.S. Rawat, Anantha Ramu, Srijana Gummala, and Siva Sankar Lotheti.
Following the bifurcation of united Andhra Pradesh into two separate states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in 2014, the Union government had re-allotted IAS and IPS officers working in the undivided state to the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh and the newly created Telangana state.
Some of the officers had challenged their re-allocation and approached the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), which had ruled in their favour. The DoPT had then challenged the CAT orders in the High Court.
The Telangana High Court, in its order of January 3, 2024, had ruled that the cases of the AIS officers should be reconsidered for final allocation in accordance with the guidelines framed on the basis of the recommendations of Pratyush Sinha committee between the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Acting on the High Court’s direction, the DoPT had constituted the Khandekar committee in March 2024 for reconsideration of the final allocation.
The AIS officers who have been directed to join Andhra Pradesh are currently holding key positions in Telangana.
Kata is the Commissioner of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), Rose is the Energy Secretary, and Karuna holds the post of Secretary and Commissioner of the Women, Child, Disabled and Senior Citizens Department.
Prasad is the Principal Secretary, Tourism and Youth Affairs, and Anjani Kumar, who served as Director General of Police, is currently the Chairman of the Road Safety Authority.
Bisht, also a DGP rank officer, is the Director of Telangana State Police Academy while Abhishek Mohanty is the Police Commissioner of Karimnagar.
In January last year, the DoPT had relieved then Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar from the state government after the Telangana High Court quashed the IAS officer’s allotment to the Telangana cadre. The High Court set aside the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), allocating the IAS officer to Telangana in 2016. Following the DoPT order, the 1989 batch IAS officer later took voluntary retirement.
–IANS