Telangana HC extends IPS officer Abhishek Mohanty’s joining date

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Thursday, March 20 extended IPS officer Abhishek Mohanty’s joining date till March 24.

The High Court also asked 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.

In February, the Union government allotted the Andhra Pradesh cadre to Mohanty. A division bench comprising 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.

Representing Mohanty, counsel P S Rajasekhar stressed that the IPS officer was entitled to choose Telangana on domicile grounds. The counsel said that the authorities had messed up the transfer issue which led to Mohanty being allotted the AP cadre.

Rajasekhar further said that the CAT had studied the issue and ruled in favour of the IPS officer. 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.

However, 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.

The division bench asked solicitor general B Narasimha Sarma if there was an urgency to send Mohanty to AP. The High Court asked the solicitor general to get clarity on the same by March 24.