AP: IAS officer moves HC against CAT order

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HYDERABAD: A case pertaining to transfer of an IAS officer for subjecting a woman IRS officer, who is his colleague, to sexual har..

HYDERABAD: A case pertaining to transfer of an IAS officer for subjecting a woman IRS officer, who is his colleague, to sexual harassment came before the division bench of the High Court comprising chief justice Madan B. Lokur and justice PV Sanjay Kumar on Tuesday. The bench posted the case to Wednesday for hearing. Petitioner VS Bhaskar, IAS officer and deputy directorgeneral of UIDAI, approached the High Court seeking a direction to quash the interim orders of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) as illegal and to suspend operation of the CAT's order given on February 3. The tribunal, in its order, directed the central government and UIDAI authorities concerned to transfer Bhaskar from the present posting within 15 days from February 3.
Bhaskar said in his petition that the tribunal had apparently decided in favour of S Padmaja, IRS officer and UIDAI assistant directorgeneral basing on the nature of allegations levelled against him and on the observations of improperlyconstituted Complaints Committee of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and its report which was prepared without following the prescribed procedures. Bhaskar said the tribunal erred in exercising its jurisdiction in ordering his transfer out of the present posting. The committee had heard him for only five minutes and never afforded him a chance to crossexamine the witnesses and to clarify his position in full, and acted in complete disregard to the principles of natural justice. The committee report was liable to be rejected on the ground of improper constitution of the committee. "She approached the tribunal only to harass me for no fault of mine only because she appears to have developed a grudge against me presumably on account of work distribution", he said.

Dealing with an application filed by the senior IRS officer, the tribunal had earlier said that the victim who was subjected to sexual harassment was compelled to go on earned leave since it was not possible to work under the very same person who was the perpetrator of sexual harassment. The committee, in its findings, noted that most of the inappropriate behaviour of the IAS officer concerned had happened under the influence of alcohol and he resorted to making phone calls using abusive language, threats, endearments etc. when he was in an inebriated condition.