The sudden transfer of senior IAS officer L V Subrahmanyam from the post of chief secretary has evoked mixed response from the serving and retired bureaucratic circles.
A senior IAS officer in the Andhra Pradesh government said the chief secretary was no doubt the senior most officer in the administration, but he cannot defy the orders from the chief minister’s office (CMO).
“Any order that comes from the CMO will be issued with the notice and instructions of the chief minister, though the issuing authority might be a junior officer compared to the chief secretary. So, the chief secretary has no option but to follow the orders,” he said.
When it comes to the authority of the CMO and the CS, the former has the upper hand. So, if CMO official Praveen Prakash issued orders revising the business rules and fixes time frame for issuance of GOs, the chief secretary has to follow them, he said.
However, former chief secretary of Andhra Pradesh I Y R Krishna Rao found fault with the manner in which Subrahmanyam was shunted out of his post.
“Though the chief minister has powers to transfer the chief secretary, the procedure followed for the same was not proper. It was very unfortunate,” he said.
Krishna Rao alleged that the CMO had turned into an irresponsible institution despite having powers.
“The chief ministers who tried to control the CMO would perish ultimately,” he said, in an indirect reference to former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
