Who is Puducherry’s finance secretary? Raajiv Yaduvanshi or W V R Murthy? Amid the turf war between Chief Minister N Rangasamy and Chief Secretary M Sathiavathy on the one hand and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on the other, the matter has been left hanging.
After the MHA nullified the orders of the administration appointing Murthy as the new finance secretary, Sathiavathy shot off an order directing all departments to send files relating to finance to Murthy instead of Yaduvanshi.
The Rangasamy government argues that the powers to allocate subjects, including finance, vest with the territorial administration headed by the Lieutenant Governor, though rules stipulate that the appointment of finance secretary must be done in concurrence with the MHA. So far, the rule has been followed only for appointment of Chief Secretary and IGP.
Appointments for other posts were done by the territorial administration. Normally, the second in seniority among the IAS officers in the administration is appointed as Finance Secretary. That happened in case of Yaduvanshi as well. However, the government replaced him with one of the junior-most officials, which triggered the MHA veto.