Officer who complained against Praveen Prakash to LV Subrahmanyam gets transferred

VIJAYAWADA: Soon after the shocking transfer of senior IAS officer, L.V. Subrahmanyam, as chief secretary, the Jagan Mohan Reddy government on Thursday moved out additional secretary, K. Gurumurthy, from the General Administration Department (GAD).

It was Gurumurthy who had lodged a complaint with Subrahmanyam against GAD principal secretary (political), Praveen Prakash, a few days ago. The shunting out of the additional secretary strengths the opinion that Prakash is now emerging as a power centre.

Subrahmanyam had essentially been removed from the chief secretary’s post by the Jagan government after he issued a show cause notice to Prakash.

In his complaint, Gurumurthy had alleged that Prakash had been abusing him in front of others and requested the chief secretary that he (Gurumurthy) be transferred to another department.

After receiving the complaint, Subrahmanyam is learnt to have summoned both Prakash and Gurumurthy and resolved the issue between them. It appeared that the matter had been settled.

However, in a surprise development, Gurumurthy was transferred on Thursday as additional secretary, Backward Classes Welfare Department.

In his complaint to the then chief secretary, Gurumurthy had said, “Praveen Prakash, (Principal Secretary (politica)) is not communicative, and he is of postponing and delaying nature. He always throws blame on others and on me without any fault from my side and abuses me in front of others and thus insulted me plenty of times.

I have cleared civil services like him in 1993 civil service examination, rendered so far 24 years of service and taking abuses from him at this age is unbearable. It will be difficult for me to work under him. Kindly post me to some other department (sic),” Gurumurthy had written.

Sources in the Chief Minister’s office said Gurumurthy had the support of Subrahmanyam. However, after the latter was removed from the chief secretary’s post, Gurumurthy’s transfer was on the cards.

Subrahmanyam, meanwhile, has proceeded on leave without taking charge of his new posting as the director general of Andhra Pradesh Human Resources Development Institute at Bapatla.