Chief Secretary Kaushik Mukherjee on Wednesday met Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and discussed the row related to constituting the Civil Services Board (CSB).
The meeting comes in the light of Siddaramaiah’s reported anger against the Secretary of the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) for filing an affidavit in the High Court about constitution of the board.
According to sources, the Chief Secretary assured Siddaramaiah that the bureaucracy in the state was fully in consonance with the government and there was no question of ignoring the elected government.Mukherjee is said to have appealed to the CM not to see “minor mistakes” on part of the officers as any mala fide intention.
Assuring the bureaucracy’s full co-operation, Mukherjee tried to pacify the Chief Minister by stating that a supplementary affidavit could be filed in the High Court clearly explaining the state government’s stand on constituting the CSB.
The government has kept in abeyance the executive order on constituting the CSB and constituted a Cabinet sub-committee headed by Law and Parliamentary Affairs minister T B Jayachandra to come out with recommendations to ensure that the elected government retains some authority over transfer and service issues of the bureaucrats belonging to All India Services. The Supreme Court, while hearing a PIL against political interference in functioning of the bureaucracy, had issued orders to constitute CSBs to oversee the issues related to transfer of the officials.