In a sudden and surprising move, the Central government on Thursday reshuffled several IAS and IPS officers between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, rejecting their requests to remain in their current cadre.
Senior IAS officers — Vakati Karuna, Ronald Rose, Kata Amrapali, Vani Prasad, and Mallela Prashanti, along with senior IPS officers Anjani Kumar and Abhishek Mohanty — were originally allotted to the Andhra cadre at the time of the bifurcation of the combined state but have been serving in the Telangana cadre for the past 10 years.
They had appealed to the Centre to allow them to remain in Telangana until retirement. However, the Centre has now rejected their pleas, directing them to report to the Andhra Pradesh government.
The Department of Personnel and Training has issued orders requiring them to join the AP government by October 18.
Similarly, Telangana cadre IAS officers S S Rawat, Ananta Ramu, Srijana, and Sivasankar Lotheti, who are currently serving in Andhra Pradesh, have been instructed to report to the Telangana government before October 18.
The Khandekar Committee, which was tasked with reviewing such requests, noted that the officers had challenged the approved guidelines for the allocation of IAS officers following the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.
The committee found that their request to swap cadres was beyond the scope of the established principles, which had been upheld by the High Court.
The Ministry accepted the Khandekar Committee’s recommendation to reject their appeal, emphasizing that the allocation of officers from the undivided cadre of Andhra Pradesh was done uniformly and based on factual considerations.
The High Court had also reinforced the need to adhere to these guidelines, ruling that any deviation would be discriminatory.