Surprise twist to top bureaucratic reshuffle!

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: It’s a mystery to many in circles concerned that Dispur broke with tradition in posting two top-most IAS officers, this time around.

The normal tradition is that when an IAS officer is picked up from among two or more IAS officers of the same batch and rank and he/she is elevated to the post of the Chief Secretary, the other IAS officers of the same batch and rank are given some sort of leverage to work independently so that they don’t have to work as subordinates of the Chief Secretary. This is considered a normal bureaucratic practice when the question of two or more equals (officers) arises. This tradition, however, was broken on December 30, 2019 when a notice was issued, modifying the earlier notice issued on December 24.

With the elevation of Kumar Sanjay Krishna as the Chief Secretary to the Government of Assam from Additional Chief Secretary, his batch and rank mates — Additional Chief Secretary Rajib Kumar Bora (1985 batch) was appointed as the Chairman of the Assam Administrative Tribunal and Additional Chief Secretary VS Bhaskar (also of the 1985 batch) was appointed as the Chairman, Board of Revenue, Assam. The move was quite in sync with the tradition and practice followed in such situations.

However what has surprised many is the notice issued on Monday which stated that apart from holding the post of the Chairman of Assam Administrative Tribunal, Rajib Kumar Bora will ‘be allowed to continue as the Additional Chief Secretary for Finance, Soil Conservation and Transformation and Development Department’. Such a modification of the December 24 notice has been also done in case of the other IAS officer VS Bhaskar, who will also ‘be allowed to continue as the Additional Chief Secretary of his existing departments like Mine and Minerals, etc’, apart from holding the post of the Chairman, Board of Revenue.

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