NEW DELHI: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has sought the Centre's approval through Delhi Lt Governor Saxena to appoint Praveen Kumar Gupta, a 1989 batch IAS officer, as the new chief secretary of Delhi in place of Naresh Kumar, a 1987 batch IAS officer who is due to retire later this year.
Gupta is currently additional chief secretary. Kejriwal has started moving the bureaucrats days after the Supreme Court gave the state government the executive powers in service matters, including transfer and posting of the officers. He belongs to the Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Mizoram, and Union Territories (AGMUT) Cadre.
Senior IAS officers said that the appointment of Delhi’s chief secretary is the prerogative of the central government as Delhi does not have its own cadre of IAS officers.
The IAS officers serving in the Delhi government are drawn from the AGMUT cadre which is controlled by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and their posting to the Delhi government is decided by the Union home ministry.
