VIJAYAWADA: Six days after former Chief Secretary LV Subramanyam served a show-cause notice on Principal Secretary (Chief Minister and General Administration Department) Praveen Prakash for ‘misconduct and insubordination’ and violation of business rules, the latter submitted his reply to in-charge Chief Secretary Neerabh Kumar Prasad on Thursday.
In his response, Praveen Prakash noted that the proposal of ‘YSR Lifetime Achievement Award’ was discussed in detail during the preparatory meeting held, in which the then Chief Secretary was also present, at 4 p.m. on October 29 for the Cabinet meeting scheduled the following day. “In the meeting, it was decided to place this proposal before the Cabinet, subject to concurrence by finance department. Once the concurrence was received at 9:34 p.m. on October 29, I felt it was natural and in sequential order to bring the proposal to the Cabinet,” the Principal Secretary explained.
On November 1, Subramanyam issued a show-cause notice which said that Prakash violated business rules and order of Chief Secretary by placing the said proposal before the Cabinet. Subramanyam also pointed out that the Principal Secretary failed to circulate the file related to Gram Nyayalayas despite the Law secretary’s request.
To this, Prakash, in his reply, said, “On October 29, Law secretary was clearly told by the competent authority that as the locations of Gram Nyayalas required further deliberations, the matter will be brought forward only in the subsequent Cabinet, once the discussions are complete. Despite this communication, the matter was brought up as a table agenda in the immediate Cabinet meeting.
In this situation, I discussed the issue again with Law secretary and with his consent, the matter was dropped from the agenda,” he recalled. Prakash noted, “Notwithstanding my explanation, I would like to further state that it gives me a lot of pain and sadness to receive a notice on the above-related issues...” he said, requesting the Chief Secretary to drop further proceedings in this regard after “understanding the overall context and our shared tradition”.