Hyderabad: A division bench of the Telangana high court on Thursday extended till Monday the joining time for IPS officer Abhishek Mohanty, who was allotted to AP cadre, on one hand and directed the Union home ministry to inform it by then whether it was aware of the GO 171 issued by the Telangana govt that took Abhishek into Telangana cadre in 2022 following orders from the Central Administrative Tribunal and the high court.
A bench of Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili and Justice E Tirumala Devi gave the interim direction while hearing a petition filed by Abhishek Mohanty, who challenged the MHA’s recent decision that rejected his representation to retain him in Telangana and allotted him to AP cadre.
Asserting that Abhishek Mohanty was entitled to seek Telangana cadre on domicile grounds, his counsel P S Rajasekhar said that the authorities, including the Pratyush Sinha committee, had messed up the issues that landed him in AP. Earlier, CAT had studied the issue and ruled in favour of Abhishek and directed the Centre to allot Telangana cadre to him. HC too had asked the Centre to take into account all the relevant issues raised by the applicants before taking a final decision, he said. But the Centre did not apply its mind and passed orders in a mechanical manner, he said. Moreover, it appointed the Khandelkar committee to look into the issue, which was beyond the scope of the high court order, Rajasekhar said. The bench said that Abhishek’s record shows that he served AP first, then came to Telangana and now was being asked to go to AP again. “This is nothing but playing musical chairs,” the bench said.
“He is your officer. Is there any urgency to send him to AP now even before the adjudication of his plea here?” the bench asked additional solicitor general B Narasimha Sarma and directed him to get instructions by Monday, whether it would allow him to stay back in Telangana till adjudication of this plea. Referring to IFS officer Jauhari’s case, Rajasekhar said that the Centre did not challenge the order of CAT in his case and implemented its order. “The Centre is adopting a selective approach,” he added.