Following this, the HC said that till it decides the issue, Telangana should accommodate Mohanty and gave the CS time till Monday to make up its mind.
“You can keep him without any posting if you want, but you have to take him in first,” said a bench of Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice A Venkateswar Reddy.
The HC also gave temporary relief to the CS by exempting him from appearance before CAT on Friday in the contempt case filed by Mohanty for refusing to implement the CAT order.
The bench, however, made it clear that if it at has to stay a CAT order that interfered with Centre’s cadre allocation, then it would not confine itself to one bureaucrat but cover all IAS and IPS officers now working in cadres allotted by CAT.
Mohanty- with no work and no salary – had filed a contempt case against the CS as it has been nine months since CAT order Telangana to take him. The CS approached the HC to stay the CAT directive to appear before it on Friday as he was told to be present with a compliance order or face contempt proceedings.
Earlier, assistant solicitor general (ASG) Namavarapu Rajeswara Rao representing the Centre informed the bench that they had already appealed against all CAT orders in respect of 16 officers and had nothing more to say about the contempt case filed by Mohanty against the CS before CAT. The ASG also furnished to the bench the communication from the Union ministry in response to the state’s letter.
Senior counsel B Adinarayana Rao, representing Mohanty, made it clear that he would not mind an HC stay on CAT decision if the same was applied to all bureaucrats continuing in the state of their choice for the last five years based on CAT orders.
“All that I am asking is please do not single out a young IPS officer,” Adinarayana said.
The case would come up for hearing on March 15.