BENGALURU: In the wake of complaints of alleged irregularities, Speaker Ramesh Kumar on Thursday directed Assembly Secretary S Murthy to confine only to Assembly session duties and attend to protocol duties of dignitaries visiting the state, and handover all files in his custody to the concerned sections with immediate effect.
The Speaker also issued a directive that all administrative files shall be routed to the office of the Speaker by the Director, Karnataka Legislative Assembly Secretariat, after careful scrutiny of facts and figures.
“Considering the series of complaints against the Assembly Secretary received over considerable time and observations made by the Secretary in the files presented to the office of the Speaker of Karnataka Legislative Assembly, it is felt with great regret that the person holding the highest position in the Assembly Secretariat could be mislead due to ignorance about the administrative procedures with which the Secretary should have been conversant,” the Speaker stated in directive.
The events in the recent past put the affairs in the Legislative Assembly Secretariat in limelight for wrong reasons and any delay in corrective action could be detrimental to the Assembly as an institution and government as a whole, he added.
Earlier in July this year the Speaker had curtailed the financial powers of officers in the Assembly Secretariat after reports of alleged misappropriation of funds in purchase of various items for the secretariat and Legislators Home (LH). According to an earlier order, officers were authorised to clear bills, approve payments up to Rs 1 lakh. New order was issued on July 27 making it mandatory to get Speaker’s approval for all financial transactions in the Assembly Secretariat.