It was a great relief to the senior IAS officer and former Hyderabad district collector Naveen Mittal as the Hyderabad Bench of Central Administrative Tribunal on Tuesday set aside a charge memo issued against him. The memo was given by the Andhra Pradesh Government in 2012.

The two-member bench involving B Venkateswara Rao (judicial) and Ranjana Chowdary (Admin) allowed the plea of Mittal. Mittal challenged the charge memo issued to him on October 23, 2012, to start disciplinary actions against him for his alleged involvement in regularising prime lands and buildings in the city in favour of private parties.

These lands also include a 30-crore worth of government land at Bathukammakunta, a 10,000 square yard plot at Bapunagar and a 4,000 square yard government hospital land at Sanathnagar in Hyderabad. Mittal’s decision of regularising prime lands caused a huge loss.

But he denied any offense. Rather he blamed his successor Natrajan Gulzar saying that it was he who prepared the draft charges against him at the request of the Government. Mittal’s advocate K. Sudhakar Reddy opposed that his client was senior to his successor and framing charges on his client on the report of a junior officer was proof of ulterior motives.

Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) bench felt that there was bad faith involved the delegating power to prepare charges against the petitioner. Hence, the bench granted liberty to the government to conduct an enquiry with an independent authority in respect of alleged irregularities.