VIJAYAWADA: The State government has sought an explanation from retired IAS officer of the AP state cadre Preeti Sudan on alleged misuse of her position during her tenure as Union Secretary, Department of Health and Family Welfare, to derive personal gain.
The State government, through a GO issued by the General Administration Department (GAD) on Tuesday, sought the explanation of the retired bureaucrat as she allegedly violated the provisions of All India Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968 by converting the Extraordinary Leave (EOL) as Earned Leave/Half Pay Leave by influencing the subordinates under her control, without competency and without concurrence of the cadre controlling authority — AP government and Department of Personnel & Training, (DoPT) of the Central government.
The 1983-batch IAS officer, while working as Vice Chairman and MD of the AP State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited, was granted Extraordinary Leave (EOL) for one year (from March 1, 2005 to February 28, 2006) to go to the US to join her family.
Later in June, 2005, Preeti applied to utilise her time in the USA to take up a study with the Development Research Unit of the World Bank and the DoPT said that it had no objection to extend the EOL from March 1, 2006 to May 5, 2006 and accorded ex-post-facto sanction to the EOL.
Sudan requested that the period of EOL may be regularised as EL/HPL as per AIS (Leave) rules. The pension contribution has been calculated and communicated to her. She has remitted an amount of `37,164 towards pension contribution for six months. The GAD, in a letter in February 2020, informed the DoPT about the request of Sudan to remit the pension contribution for six months by treating the assignment with the World Bank as a long term assignment. The GAD also requested the DoPT to convey the concurrence of the competent authority to consider the request of Sudan to convert EOL as EL/HPL, excluding the period of six months of assignment.
Meanwhile, Preeti Sudan stated the regularisation of leave period other than the period of foreign assignment is an administrative matter, eligibility to which has to be calculated as per service book. Accordingly, after scrutiny of the service book, the EOL has been converted into EL/HPL and enclosed a copy of the same to the Chief Secretary of Andhra Pradesh. She said there is no action due on the issues raised in her application and requested to take a note of it so that the matter is closed.