Allot AP cadre to IAS officer Lotheti Siva Sankar in 4 weeks, Telangana HC tells Centre

HYDERABAD: The Telangana high court on Thursday dismissed a petition by the central govt and directed it to allot Andhra Pradesh cadre to IAS officer Lotheti Siva Sankar within four weeks in line with an earlier order of Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT).A division bench of Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili and Justice E Tirumala Devi pulled up the central authorities for the mechanical manner in which the domicile status was determined for Sankar, who has been fighting for AP cadre after being allotted Telangana cadre contrary to his option. The bench, which took up the Centre's plea against CAT, refused to interfere with the order of the tribunal based on the guidelines of Pratyush Sinha committee on a bureaucrat's domicile status.

The bench found solid proof that Lotheti is a native of Dharmavaram in Vizianagaram district in AP. The application to UPSC at the time of his selection, application he filled at the IAS training centre at Mussoorie and other evidence clearly showed that he is a domicile of AP, the bench said.

As the state was united at the time, Lotheti had given a Rangareddy address as permanent address where he was staying to attend to his hospitalised father before his selection to IAS.

"Pratyush Sinha committee guidelines clearly say that authorities should look at the permanent address column only if they cannot find the particulars from the UPSC record. But in the case of Lotheti the officials looked at the second option and determined his domicile status as Telangana. ," he said. Meanwhile, the CAT bench on Thursday heard a contempt plea filed by Lotheti against the central officials and adjourned it to Aug 7.