Former chief secretary P. Rama Mohana Rao’s observations on the Central and State governments during his press conference on Tuesday do not seem to have gone down well with members of his fraternity in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS).
While viewing his press conference as an attempt to defend himself, many IAS officers — serving and retired alike — feel that Mr. Rao had lost the script somewhere.
Describing the former chief secretary’s comments on the Central and State governments as extremely serious, M.G. Devesahayam, former IAS officer of the Haryana cadre, has called for disciplinary action to be initiated against him.
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A serving officer argued that although Mr. Rao’s reference to the presence of the Central Reserve Police Force during last week’s searches was valid, he should have confined himself to self-defence and should not have gone into questioning the Centre or the State government. Mr Rao’s claim that he continues to be chief secretary has only evoked amusement among the fraternity.
As regards to the powers available to the Income Tax department for conducting search operations, the officer said that they were subject to the Constitutional scheme of things, according to which law and order is a State subject. Another officer described Mr. Rao’s comments as an outburst and did not agree with the latter on some of his observations, which, according to him, were political in nature. Mr. Devesahayam criticised Mr. Rao for seeking to exhibit his personal loyalty to former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa. One explanation offered by the former chief secretary is that he and his family have been under “enormous stress” for the last one week, in light of certain reports appearing in the media regarding him. This is why he has made “some remarks.” Till late in the day on Tuesday, there was no word from the State government on whether or not it was planning to initiate action against the former chief secretary.