TS-AP bifurcation: Tribunal order on allocation of two employees set aside

HYDERABAD : A division bench of the Hyderabad High Court has ruled that irrespective of whether the persons working in different zones in the erstwhile combined Andhra Pradesh state were rightly appointed in terms of the Presidential Order, once the state stood bifurcated, the statewise cadre employees of both the newly formed states had the option to seek allocation to one or the other state as per the provisions of AP Reorganisation Act, 2014.

The bench of Justice P V Sanjay Kumar and Justice N Balayogi was allowing two petitions filed by Ahmed Abdul Samee and other engineers of the panchayat raj department challenging an order of the AP Administrative Tribunal in setting aside their repatriation from Kurnool (AP state) to Telangana in 2007 while implementing GO 610 which was intended to repatriate employees working in excess in Telangana to their native zones.

According to the petitioners, during division of employees between the two states, they opted for Telangana. Aggrieved by their allocation, some of the engineers appealed to the tribunal and the latter had set aside their allocation.

After hearing the case, the bench noted that the petitioners who are appointed as the assistant engineers were later promoted as executive engineers and they are senior to the applicants before the tribunal. The bench, while upholding the petitioners’ allocation to TS, faulted the tribunal for not looking into the case under which they were allocated to TS and set aside the tribunal order.