High Court Orders Shifting Of Somesh Kumar To Andhra Pradesh

The Telangana High Court on Tuesday struck down a 2016 order of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) authorising the continuing of IAS office Somesh Kumar in the Telangana cadre.

Somesh Kumar is now the Chief Secretary of Telangana, a post he was promoted to in 2019.

After prolonged hearings, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice S Nanda allowed a writ petition filed by the Centre's Department of Personnel and Training challenging the Central Administrative Tribunal Hyderabad order allocating the senior IAS officer to Telangana, and quashed the order.

The judge said that allocation to a cadre was an incidence of service, and that no officer had a vested right to claim allotment to a particular cadre.

"The CAT had grossly erred in interfering with the allocation of the first respondent to the State of Andhra Pradesh. Consequently, judgment and order dated 29.03.2016 passed by CAT, being clearly unsustainable in law and on facts, is hereby set aside and quashed," the order said.

The bench, however, added that as per Rule 6(1) of the Indian Administrative Service (Regulations of Seniority) Rules, 1987, read with Rule 10 of the Indian Administrative Service (Probation) Rules, 1954, the seniority of Somesh Kumar would not be disturbed and would stay the same.

The counsel for Somesh Kumar made a request to the court to keep the order in abeyance for three weeks so that an appeal could be filed, but the High Court rejected the plea and ordered that Kumar be transferred to Andhra Pradesh immediately.

"Having considered the matter in detail and pronounced the judgment, we are not inclined to stay the same," the bench said.