Amrapali Kata and 3 other IAS officers challenge AP cadre allocation orders
The four IAS officers each submitted a separate plea to overturn the DoPT’s rulings
By Sistla Dakshina Murthy Published on 14 Oct 2024 1:20 PM GMT
File Photo
Hyderabad: Challenging the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) decision to allocate them to the Andhra Pradesh cadre, four IAS officers – Vakati Karuna, Vani Prasad, Amrapali Kata and Srijana Gummalla – have approached the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) on Monday.
The four IAS officers each submitted a separate plea to overturn the DoPT’s rulings and continue their services in Telangana. The petitions are scheduled for hearing on Tuesday. Earlier, the three IAS officers convened a meeting with Telangana chief secretary Shanti Kumari at Dr BR Ambedkar Telangana State Secretariat.
After extensive deliberations on this, they decided to knock on the doors of the CAT. Interestingly, all four IAS officers who have approached the CAT are women. Among them, three women IAS officers are from Telangana and along with Srijana from AP have filed petitions.
Recently, the DoPT rejected the plea of 11 IAS officers to continue in the Telangana cadre. Along with IAS Vani Prasad, Vakati Karuna, Ronald Rose, Amrapali and Prashanthi were already working in Telangana. Anjani Kumar, Abhilash Bist and Abhishek Mahanthi from the IPS cadre have been allotted to the Andhra Pradesh cadre.
2014 orders for bifurcation
On the other hand, the DoPT has issued orders for Srijana, Sivashankar and Harikiran to go to Telangana from Andhra cadre. The DoPT also cancelled the requests of SS Rawat and Anantharamu to go to Telangana from AP. With this, both of them are continuing in the AP cadre. In 2014 after bifurcation, the Centre divided the All India Service officers IAS and IPS between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
To this extent, Telugu states have been allocated by the Central Personnel Affairs Department. As a result, some officials are working against the Centre’s orders. In this regard, the DoPT has issued the latest orders and stated that the officers should continue in their own cadre allotted to them. This was challenged by some officials in CAT in 2014. In 2016, the CAT ruled in favour of the authorities. As a result, the DoPT filed a petition in the Telangana High Court challenging the CAT verdict in 2017.
Subsequently, the court, which took up the hearing in March 2023, constituted the Deepak Khandekar Single Member Commission on March 21, 2024, to examine the request of the officials. To this extent, IAS and IPS have examined the requests. Later they rejected their requests. As per the recommendations of the committee, the Centre has once again issued orders. It also ordered a report in AP by October 16. Recently, many officials approached CAT challenging the orders of DoPT.
