Litigation may stop Telangana, Andhra Pradesh staff split
The committee could only decide on the bifurcation about 50,000 staff during its tenure.
Hyderabad: The number of cases filed in the High Court and administrative tribunals related to bifurcation of employees between TS and AP is rising. Staff who might have move base against their preference are filing cases against allotments they have been given.
Out of 57,000 employees, bifurcation of 56,000 has been completed so far. Bifurcation of the remaining employees is held up by the cases litigation they have filed.
A majority of the cases pertain to employees objecting to their allotment to AP though they had submitted Telangana as their preference option.
The Centre had appointed the Kamalnathan Committee to allocate state-cadre staff between TS and AP after the bifurcation of the state in 2014. The committee’s tenure was extended till early 2017 to complete the bifurcation but it could not complete the task in its entirety. The committee could only decide on the bifurcation about 50,000 staff during its tenure.
Following this, the Centre had intervened to complete the process in consultation with TS and AP governments, and managed to see through the contentious bifurcation of deputy collectors recently. The bifurcation of police, medical and health staff is still pending.
The process ran into hurdles when employees approached the High Court and state tribunals challenging their allocation against their preferred choice. As many as 131 cases have been filed in the High Court while another 35 cases were filed in the tribunals.
The employees secured stay orders for High Court and tribunals. Both the state governments are gearing up to submit their arguments before the High Court and the tribunals and get the stay orders vacated to finish the bifurcation process. Officials said 98.77 per cent of bifurcation of employees was complete and there the rest would be resolved soon. Any employee moving the court at this stage would delay the process further.