Thiruvananthapuram: Dissatisfaction is brewing among several senior bureaucrats on the latest changes and charge arrangements of senior IAS officers in the state. Several officials cite that the appointment of multiple officers as secretaries in the same department and the division of work tends to weaken those officers who raised principled objection to some pertinent policy issues in the recent past.
Chief secretary Vishwas Mehta issued one such order on Tuesday. Additional chief secretary (labour and skills) Satyajeet Rajan has been given a second additional charge of the general administration department as well. Interestingly, he has been appointed above the existing principal secretary (general administration) K R Jyothilal, who has several years of experience. The order also says that all the important files, policy matters, cabinet notes and service matters should be hereafter routed through Rajan.
Similarly, secretary (social justice and women and child development) Biju Prabhakar, who is also the chairman and MD of KSRTC, has been appointed as secretary in the transport department, another charge held by Jyothilal. Sources said that when there are multiple secretaries in a department, it is possible to bypass one secretary using the other, in case there is a difference of opinion with the chief secretary or higher ups.
“Also, which files should be routed through the senior official and which are not required is a matter of interpretation,” a top official said.
The trend to dilute a senior officer by posting another secretary is visible in several other key departments too. The case in point is the home department, where for the first time, a secretary was posted in addition to the existing additional chief secretary (home and vigilance), who is also secretary of the finance (expenditure) and ports departments.
Similarly, in PWD, along with Anand Singh who was holding the charge of secretary, Dinesh Arora, who is otherwise holding the charge of secretary of power department, was also appointed. Earlier, when M Sivasankar was removed from the Information Technology department, the government had appointed Mohammed Y Safirulla as the secretary in-charge. In addition, the government has now appointed Saurabh Jain, who also holds the charge of taxes (excise), in the same department.
Legal experts said that the direction for routing the files in the government order reciting appointments is not in tune with the rules of business. As per the rule 23 of the rules of business, the division of work among two secretaries of the same department is the prerogative of the minister, which is an internal affair of the concerned department. The chief secretary cannot exercise any power to issue directions on file-routing within a portfolio held by the minister.
However, transport minister A K Saseendran said that the decision to appoint a secretary in addition to K R Jyothilal in his department is with his concurrence to reduce his workload. “It was his own proposal to request for another person too in the department citing health reasons. Appointing two secretaries for a department is not new and is a common practice followed by all the departments whenever it is felt necessary,” Saseendran said.
However, he did not comment on the order that mandates the mode of file-routing between the departmental secretaries.