HYDERABAD: Justice R Kantha Rao of the Central Administrative Tribunal ( CAT ) has directed Andhra Pradesh to send the name of Kurnool SP (non-cadre) Sheik Shavali to UPSC for the purpose of selecting and conferring IPS status while selecting state-level officials from the 2015 panel. The judge gave this interim direction while hearing the plea of Sheik Shavali who challenged the decision of the chief secretary in sidelining him on untenable grounds. The judge found fault with the state for trying to lay the burden of its lapse on an individual officer who already suffered on account of the state's inexplicable inaction in this regard.

According to Shavali's counsel Kandukuri Sudhakar Reddy, Shavali was selected as DSP in 2000 in the recruitment conducted by APPSC. Though the public service commission notified 19 DSP posts and selected 19 candidates, somehow Andhra Pradesh filled only 10 DSP posts and adjusted the remaining 9 selected officials in other groups-one jobs. Shavali was taken in as lay secretary in the state's health department in 2001. But he challenged the decision of the state in adjusting them in other departments even while keeping the nine posts unfilled. Though the state and its APPSC fought till the Supreme Court, they were facing defeat after defeat in every legal battle right from the central administrative tribunal. Finally, in 2006, the Supreme Court slapped Rs 25,000 costs on the state and directed the state to take Shavali as DSP in 2001 vacancy and also to give him notional seniority from 2001 onwards. Even after that the state dodged the issue for five more years and gave Shavali the post of DSP in 2011, Sudhakar Reddy said.

Now the state has not shortlisted the name of Shavali for the purpose of sending names to UPSC for making them as IPS officers through promotion mode, the counsel said. The state counsel said that they could not send his name because he turned 56 years and also because he did not possess eight years of service as DSP.

Petitioner's counsel refuted this line of argument and told the tribunal that the apex court already directed the state to accord notional seniority to Shavali and, when seen from this, his total DSP service should be regarded as 16 years. The judge agreed with him and directed the AP Chief Secretary to send the proposal to UPSC and Union of India for considering the name of Shavali for IPS status. While seeking counters from the state and the center, the judge posted the case to August 27.

