Former chief secretary of Andhra Pradesh L V Subrahmanyam, who had to shunted out of the post within months of his appointment in the top bureaucratic post by chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, blamed that his junior IAS officer Praveen Prakash had misled the chief minister.
In a candid talk with Andhra Jyothy MD Vemuri Radhakrishna in the Open Heart talk show, Subrahmanyam, without mentioning the name of Praveen Prakash, said a junior IAS officer in the chief minister’s office, had introduced the system of taking decisions bypassing seniors.
“I issued him a show-cause notice, as he was bypassing the chief secretary though he was supposed to work under his superior. I realised that he was misleading the chief minister on many issues and I had to reprimand him,” he said.
Subrahmanyam said Praveen Prakash had told him that the situation was fast changing in the government and that it was entering a Presidential-type of governance.
“He said for him, the chief minister is ultimate; not chief secretary. He virtually took a class on administration,” the former chief secretary said.
He said though the chief minister was the ultimate boss, there were procedures to be followed in the system.
“Subsequently, he started bringing pressure on the officials of other departments and they started complaining to me,” Subrahmanyam said.
The former chief secretary said he had to pay the penalty for insisting that there should be a note file from the minister or the chief minister on any proposal.
“Even in the files brought before the cabinet meeting, there were no note files on the proposals, even if they are from the chief minister. The ministers have no time to study files,” he regretted.
Subrahmanyam recalled that when he put forth a proposal before Jagan at the first cabinet meeting that he would take an orientation class to the ministers on writing note files, the chief minister turned it down, saying it amounted to insulting the seniors.