Andhra Pradesh: Sudden Transfer of Chief Secretary Raises Questions on Accountability

Vijayawada: The unceremonious exit of L.V. Subramanyam from the chief secretary post in the first week of this month exposes chinks in the IAS’s steel frame in Andhra Pradesh. The incident also serves as a classic case of the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) bulldozing its way into the domain of the executive.

Subramanyam’s shifting was hasty and he was asked to relinquish his job instantly, with the commissioner of land administration Neerab Kumar Prasad replacing him with “immediate effect”. This forced LV, as Subramanyam is popular in official circles, to skip an inter-state meeting scheduled with the Telangana government in Hyderabad to address pending bifurcation-related issues and return to the AP secretariat at Velagapudi to facilitate the transition process.

Subramanyam was asked to take charge as the director general of the Andhra Pradesh Human Resources Development Institute at Bapatla.

Embarrassingly for the 1983 batch IAS officer, he received transfer orders from Praveen Prakash, a subordinate officer in the CMO, with whom he had a tiff recently. Prakash serves as the principal secretary (political) of the general adminsitration department and as the principal secretary to the chief minister.

Subramanyam, who is due to retire on April 30, 2020, served a show-cause notice on Prakash, asking him why a disciplinary action could not be initiated against him on charges of “gross disobedience, insubordination and violation of business rules and conduct rules”. The chief secretary cited a couple of files relating to the YSR Lifetime Achievement Awards and Grama Nyayalayas, which Prakash in his capacity as the principal secretary (political) of the GAD, failed to deal with in compliance of the Andhra Pradesh Business Rules.

Prakash was accused by Subramanyam of holding back the file relating to the Grama Nyayalayas following oral instructions from the CM, keeping the chief secretary in the dark.

His transfer orders came within a few hours after the show-cause notice, indicating the proximity Praveen Prakash enjoys with Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy.

Praveen Prakash. Photo: Screegrab/Tv10

A one-time confidant

Subramanyam was once considered a loyalist of Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy and his family. YSR, as he was popularly known, was the chief minister of the undivided Andhra Pradesh state between 2004 and 2009. Subramanyam figured as the eleventh accused in the infamous Emaar land scam, in which Jaganmohan Reddy is facing trial in the CBI court as A1 (first accused). The high court, however, discharged Subramanyam from the case in 2018 for want of prima facie evidence establishing his role in the quid pro quo case.

Later, he was handpicked by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to replace Anil Chandra Punetha as chief secretary in the run up to the state and parliament elections earlier this year. Subramanyam had a turbulent time with previous CM N. Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP while enforcing the model code.

Naidu questioned his appointment, accusing Subramanyam of working with the NDA's "hidden agenda" to scuttle his party’s winning prospects. The TDP charged that Subramanyam was instrumental in shuffling the IAS and IPS officers who had a soft corner for the Naidu government at the request of Jaganmohan Reddy’s YSR Congress under the pretext of enforcing the model code.

L.V. Subramanyam. Photo: Facebook/AP government

After getting relief from the Emaar land scam case, Subramanyam reportedly reneged on taking controversial decisions, leading to a widening in the gulf between him and Jaganmohan Reddy. Particularly, his whistle-blowing over the presence of Christians in Hindu temples, especially the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam’s (TTD) which manages the Balaji temple at Tirumala, hastened his exit, it is said.

Subramanyam, who served the TTD's executive officer in the past, is a staunch Hindu. The Jagan government began to view him with suspicion as being close with the BJP government at the Centre because of him asking non-Hindu staff to give up their jobs at temples.

CMO: A power centre with little responsibility?

The Subramanyam case brings the spotlight on an element of arrogance and lack of wisdom with which the CMO is apparently functioning. The apparent lack of accountability was brought to focus by I.Y.R. Krishna Rao, who retired as chief secretary of the AP government. In 2017, he filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the AP high court seeking to put an end to alleged misuse of power by the CMO and that special advisors had created a "parallel secretariat".

In the petition, Krishna Rao highlighted the need to make the CMO accountable by bringing in certain changes in the business rules. He said that the CMO does not maintain any record of the aid or advise given by these officers and that none of them sign any files that are put up for the consideration and decision of the chief minister.

"Additionally, it is my humble submission that the said office bearers [advisors] maintain certain informal notes for their convenience and the same are destroyed at regular intervals as per the choice of the officer concerned," the petition said. "This practice makes the officers in the CMO less responsible and accountable,” Krishna Rao contended.

E.A.S. Sarma, a retired IAS officer, told The Wire that having one IAS officer as the principal secretary in the CMO, as well as the principal secretary (political) in the GAD, is an unhealthy practice that may cause bad blood between the legislative and executive organs of the government. He said it also results in the CMO's direct intrusion in administrative affairs through its principal secretary, Praveen Prakash.

The lack of proper coordination between the CMO and the secretariat came to the fore when the name of an annual award given to the Class X students was changed. A GO was issued by the department of school education re-naming the award after Jagan’s father Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy. Since 2017, it bore the name of former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. After adverse reactions from different sections, the chief minister asked officials not to change the name, calling it a goof up due to a “communication gap” in the administration. Sarma says this speaks of immaturity in governance.

N. Chandrababu Naidu and Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy. Photos: PTI Illustration: The Wire

'Naidu brand' officers facing exclusion?

Since YSR's regime, there has been a marked shift in the way bureaucrats function. Officials in the Andhra Pradesh government began aligning along political and caste lines. This became more obvious since Jagan came to power with a resounding victory in the April 2019 elections with his own clique of officers holding coveted posts.

Those who apparently enjoyed preferential treatment during the TDP regime were pushed into the background. Satish Chandar, who headed the CMO under Naidu as a special chief secretary, was posted in the higher education department a few days ago, after the orders were held for five months. Two other senior IAS officers in the Naidu CMO – Rajamouli and Sai Pratap – are still awaiting posting orders.

Public administration experts fear that under the Jagan dispensation, the official machinery may get demoralised and crippled on account of the parallel and shadow administration run by a contingent of “special advisors”. Subramanyam was reportedly fed up with a flow of “advises” coming from special advisor to the CM, Ajeya Kallam, who retired as chief secretary to the AP government.

Recently, the Jagan government appointed Murali Akurati, a retired IAS officer of the Telangana cadre, as special advisor to the CM on school education. In his petition, Krishna Rao had warned that a hierarchy over the legally constituted official agencies is building up with the creation of special advisors and that it may result in paralysing the administration at the end of the day.

Gali Nagaraja is a freelance journalist who writes on the two Telugu states.

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