Jolt to Telangana Chief Secretary as HC sends him to Andhra

Hyderabad: In a big setback to Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, the Telangana High Court on Tuesday quashed his allotment to Telangana cadre.

The court set aside the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), allocating the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer to Telangana in 2016.

A Division Bench comprising of Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice Surepalli Nanda allowed the writ petition filed by Department for Personnel Training (DoPT) seeking suspension of CAT order.

CAT’s Hyderabad bench had passed an order on March 29, 2016 allotting Somesh Kumar to Telangana.

The counsel for Somesh Kumar has made a request to the court to keep order in abeyance so that an appeal can be filed.

The High Court had reserved its order in July and it was pronounced on Tuesday.

Following 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. In this process, Somesh Kumar was allotted to Andhra Pradesh.

However, Somesh Kumar had moved the CAT and secured an order staying his allotment to Andhra Pradesh cadre. Since then he continued in Telangana and became Chief Secretary in 2019.

Somesh Kumar was one of the 16 bureaucrats who secured orders from CAT and continues to serve in Telangana.

DoPT had filed an appeal in the High Court challenging the stay order of CAT, Hyderabad branch.