Hyderabad: Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) Wednesday quashed the Centre’s order allotting senior IAS officer Ronald Rose to Andhra Pradesh and directed the department of personnel and training (DoPT) to allot him Telangana cadre within four weeks.
The tribunal bench at Hyderabad, comprising judicial member Dr Lata Baswaraj Patne and administration member Varun Sindhu Kul Kaumudi, gave the order while allowing the petition filed by Rose, who questioned the Centre’s decision in sending him to AP contrary to his choice, Telangana.
Rose was allotted to AP during the 2014 cadre division exercise. He challenged the allotment before CAT, which ruled in his favour. With the help of the order, he continued in Telangana for the last 10 years. However, the Centre challenged the CAT’s order, and finally the Telangana high court last year referred the case to the Centre. It asked Rose and other officials with similar grievance to make a representation to the Centre pointing out their views.
The Centre referred the representations to the one-man commission headed by former DoPT officer Deepak Khandekar. He rejected all of them, including Ronald Rose’s plea. Accordingly, the Centre, in Oct 2024, directed the IAS officer to join the AP cadre. He did join, but challenged the Centre’s decision before the CAT again.
Appearing for Ronald Rose, senior counsel G Vidya Sagar said the officials at the time of cadre division in 2014 acted erroneously in fixing the seniority of two 2010 batch IAS officers, Bharati Hollikeri and J Nivas. Due to this, Rose lost an opportunity to swap cadre with J Nivas. “The record clearly shows this, but there is none at the Centre to examine the facts,” he said terming the functioning of Khandekar as mechanical.
The counsel also brought to the notice of the CAT bench the instances of swapping of cadre by some officials even before the commencement of the division exercise, and alleged that such whimsical concessions to some have resulted in injustice to Rose. The bench took note of all the arguments and quashed his allotment to AP cadre and directed the Centre to send him back to Telangana.
