Central Administrative Tribunal grants relief to ex-city collector

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) on Tuesday granted relief to IAS officer Naveen Mittal, former district collector of Hyderabad, by setting aside a charge memo issued by the erstwhile AP government in October 2012. The bench allowed the plea of Mr Mittal challenging the charge memo to initiate disciplinary proceedings against him for his alleged involvement in regularising prime land and buildings in the city in favour of private parties.

The government had charged the official with allegedly regularising a Rs 30-crore parcel of land at Bathukammakunta, a 10,000-sq yard plot at Bapunagar and a 4,000-square yard government hospital land at Sanathnagar in Hyderabad and that his decisions caused a huge loss to the state. The official argued that he had done his duty in accordance with rules and procedures and as per the orders of the courts. He blamed his successor Natrajan Gulzar, as it was he who had prepared the draft charges at the behest of the state government.

Mr K. Sudhakar Reddy, counsel for Mr Naveen Mittal, contended that his client was senior than his successor and framing charges against his client based on the report of a junior officer was bad in law and there were malafides in framing charges against his client. A two-member bench comprising B. Venkateswara Rao (judicial) and Ranjana Chowdary, while quashing the memo, felt that there were malafides involved in delegating power to draft the article of charges against the petitioner. While quashing the charge memo, the bench granted liberty to the state government to conduct a detailed inquiry with an independent inquiring authority.