Court tells Centre to divide Administrative Tribunal staff

The Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday directed the Centre to take steps to complete the distribution of employees of the AP Administrative Tribunal between AP and Telangana state within three months.

A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice A. Shankar Narayana was disposing of a petition filed by Mr K Srinivas, an advocate, challenging the action of the TS government in not receiving the bills submitted by the APAT as illegal.

The bench directed the two state governments to contribute to the salaries of the APAT employees in the ratio of 58:42. The AP government has to pay for maintenance of the tribunal in addition to its share of 52 per cent in salaries, the court said.

The bench noted that despite its order to sort out the issue, the officials had failed to submit a joint report.

Telangana Chief Secretary K. Pradeep Chandra said the TS government had paid salaries to the APAT employees from April 2015 to October 2016.

AP Chief Secretary S.P. Tucker said the AP government had to receive `37 crore from the TS government with regard to maintenance and salaries.

Mr P.V. Krishnaiah, counsel for the petitioner, told the court that dispute arose following the notification of the Centre deleting Telangana state from the jurisdiction of the APAT on September 15, 2016 following the request from the TS government.

Pointing out that employees of the two states were made to suffer due to the dispute between the state governments, the bench noted since both the states could not resolve the issue, the the intervention of the Centre had become necessary