TV Somanathan appointed JS in PMO

New Delhi: Senior IAS officer TV Somanathan was on Monday appointed as Joint Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office.

Somanathan, a 1987 batch IAS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre, is working as Director, Joint Secretary level, in the World Bank in Washington since May 12, 2011.

He has been appointed in place of B V R Subrahmanyam till August 5, 2017, an order issued issued today by Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said.

His batch mate Subrahmanyam is likely to return to his parent cadre Chhattisgarh after completion of his maximum tenure of seven years of central deputation, official sources said. He had joined the PMO as Private Secretary to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on May 30, 2004.

CBI, which is probing multi-crore rupee coal blocks allocation scam, has also recorded the statement of Subrahmanyam on the direction of a special court here, they said.

The court had, in its December 16 last year order, directed CBI to examine the former Prime Minister and some top officials of the then PMO, including Subrahmanyam.