New Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary to take over without predecessor handing over charge

Jammu and Kashmir will witness a piquant administrative situation on Monday when the incoming chief secretary will take charge without the outgoing officer relinquishing office.

Lt Governor Manoj Sinha is chairing a meeting attended by the new chief secretary, Arun Kumar Mehta and administrative secretaries of various departments on Monday in summer capital Srinagar.

The meeting is a routine administrative exercise except that Mehta would be taking over as the chief secretary without his predecessor, B.V.R. Subrahmanyam handing over the charge to him.

Subrahmanyam was recently posted as the OSD in the commerce ministry in anticipation of his taking over as the commerce secretary consequent upon the retirement of the present incumbent on June 30 this year.

J&K saw an unusual administrative order two days back which was issued by the general administration department.

The order said all files will be submitted to the Lt governor and his advisors through the new chief secretary, Arun Kumar Mehta.

The order became necessary because of the reluctance of the outgoing chief secretary to hand over charge to Mehta who has been asked to assume office on Monday.

Former chief minister, Omar Abdullah reacted to the administrative order that said files should be routed through the new chief secretary.

"Very unusual order issued by the J&K government. If I didn't know better I'd read this order to mean the outgoing CS wasn't keen to hand over charge to his successor. Either way I haven't seen an order like this before", Omar said in his comment on Twitter.