The cadre disputes involving bureaucrats of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Telangana spring back into focus once again with a recent Telangana High Court order.  The High Court stayed a Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order directing the allocation of the Telangana cadre to senior IAS officer D. Ronald Rose (IAS:2006:AP). Rose is currently posted as Finance Secretary in AP.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice Ghouse Meera Mohiuddin passed this interim order staying the CAT’s verdict.

The Union Government had moved the High Court against the CAT’s order challenging its jurisdiction to decide the cadre of All India Service officers.

The Centre’s involvement began after the tribunal instructed the Telangana Government to bring Ronald Rose on its payroll, despite the fact that Rose had originally been allotted the AP cadre at the time of bifurcation. The Centre took umbrage at it and moved a writ petition in the High Court. The Centre argued that cadre allocation of All India Service (AIS) officers is an exclusive prerogative of the DoPT and cannot be altered through Tribunal directions.

The HC was also told that Ronald Rose had earlier sought a cadre swap, but the DoPT rejected his request, as the officers proposed for exchange were also allotted to Andhra Pradesh.

The court has directed the DoPT to submit the report of the Pratyush Sinha Committee, which had examined cadre allocations of IAS and other AIS officers after bifurcation. The hearing will resume after six weeks, during which both the DoPT and the Telangana Government have to file their counter-affidavits.

The cadre disputes involving bureaucrats of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have been waging ever since the state of Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated in 2014.