IAS officer protests against AP Chief Secretary`s service extension

Hyderabad: Sulking over the possibility of Chief Secretary Prasanna Kumar Mohanty getting a three-month extension, Chief Commissioner of Land Administration I Y R Krishna Rao proceeded on a ten-day "protest" leave from Friday.

Both Mohanty and Krishna Rao belong to the 1979 batch of IAS. Mohanty was supposed to retire from service today after attaining the age of superannuation, and Rao was next in line for the Chief Secretary`s post. Orders were not issued by the Centre extending Mohanty`s service until late in the evening, even as the Union Cabinet decided to impose President`s rule in the state. Normally, orders are issued by the General Administration Department relieving an officer from service on the notified date of retirement, but no such orders have so far been issued in Mohanty`s case. Informally, however, Mohanty was said to have been asked to continue as Chief Secretary, since he had been overseeing Andhra Pradesh`s bifurcation process. Against this backdrop, Krishna Rao shot off a letter to Mohanty in the afternoon, stating that he was proceeding on earned leave for ten days "in protest". "It is given to understand that the service extension proposals of P K Mohanty, who is due to?retire today, as Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh are under consideration by the Government of India". "The rules specifically mention that extension can only be?considered when the officer is of outstanding merit and when there are no others qualified to?hold that post. Neither of these conditions are fulfilled in the instant case," Krishna Rao said in his letter.