BHOPAL: Forest minister Umang Singhar, overstepping his jurisdiction, has divided work in his department. Singhar in his work division took away rights of additional chief secretary AP Shrivastava and gave them to secretary, forest, HS Mohanta. Annoyed over this act, Shrivastava has gone on leave till October 31.
Singhar and Shrivastava are not at good terms. Shrivastava, known to be an honest officer, avoids work against the rules. He had refused to accept the diktats of his minister in some matters.
Singhar, not happy with Shrivastava, did work division on the pretext of enforcing executive rule 13. As per this rule, the work done by secretary at the behest of chief minister or incharge minister will be considered done by the government. On the other hand, business rules clearly state that a minister does not have authority to snatch the powers of a secretary. It also states that the minister will send files either to additional chief secretary, principal secretary or secretary, whoever is senior.
In the recent past, Singhar had convened a press conference on plantation scam and had announced to handover the scam to EOW. When Singhar had made the announcement the file was with the ACS and no decision was taken then. Singhar has now assigned the works related to CM and CS Monit, cabinet précis, budget, coordination, schemes, state assembly and court to the secretary, which were earlier done by the ACS.
The issue of ACS going on leave following his annoyance with Singhar’s work division, has come to knowledge of chief minister Kamal Nath and chief secretary SR Mohanty. A decision in this regard will be taken after Magnificent MP. Singhar had earlier hogged limelight when he made allegations against former chief minister Digvijaya Singh. It is the first time when a minister has taken away powers from the ACS.
