Disconnect between Punjab Chief Secretary and Chief Minister’s Office sparked spat with Governor

Chandigarh: After the major embarrassment caused to Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann in the spat with the Punjab Governor, the question of a disconnect among the officers responsible to aid and assist the Chief Minister has come to the fore.

No one in the Punjab government is owning the responsibility for having advised and drafted the letter sent by the CM to the Punjab Governor-cum- UT Administrator, Banwari Lal Purohit, over the transfer of a Punjab cadre IPS officer Kuldip Singh Chahal from Chandigarh. The Chief Minister had made it into a Punjab vs Haryana issue which eventually landed him in an embarrassing situation.

Punjab Chief Secretary VK Janjua said, “I conveyed everything about the SSP’s transfer to everyone (also in the Chief Minister’s office) verbally.”

A senior Punjab IAS officer said that the Chief secretary should have put up an official note on the issue for the Chief Minister’s consideration.

According to V. K. Janjua, “nothing was received in writing (from UT administration)” till UT Administrator Banwari Lal Purohit’s letter of December 14.

The senior officer cited above claimed that the UT administration was also at fault as it did not send any written note on the misconduct of IPS officer Chahal or the demand for a new panel of Punjab cadre IPS officers to replace him.

He explained that UT officers could have sent a brief confidential note to the CM, who had returned on December 6 from Gujarat, about the emergent situation needing names of Punjab cadre IPS officers to replace Chahal

“It will not be fair if tomorrow, the Punjab government called up the Governor’s Principal Secretary telling her to convey to the Governor that a Vidhan Sabha session has been summoned, and all required legal steps may be taken at his end,” the upset bureaucrat said.

Indianarrative.com contacted UT Advisor Dharampal IAS asking whether a written note was also sent to the Punjab government, and he wrote back, “there is nothing unwritten.”

Punjab Chief secretary Janjua’s response to this was: “Not true, nothing was conveyed in writing.”

Dharampal also said, “We consulted everyone who needed to be consulted…at the highest level. Governor Punjab is the highest level in Punjab…”

When reminded that the Governor is only a titular head as per the Constitution of India, he said, “I would not like to comment on internal processes of another state.”

On December 14, Punjab Governor Purohit in his reply to Chief Minister Mann’s letter of December 13, stated that on November 28, he “communicated telephonically with the Punjab Chief Secretary…my decision to remove Chahal…I advised him to send a panel of efficient IPS officers for the post of SSP, UT…on November 30, Advisor UT Administration also talked to CS telephonically…you were busy campaigning in Gujarat Assembly poll, it was not possible for me to contact you.”

A senior Punjab officer in the CMO said that the CM had returned on December 6, and Chahal was repatriated on December 12. There was sufficient time for the UT Administrator or the UT Advisor to send a written note for the CM on the matter.

A retired Additional Chief Secretary feels that the responsibility for creating embarrassment for CM should be fixed on those who drafted his letter for the Governor and on Chief Secretary Janjua, who by putting things in writing for Mann, could have averted the embarrassing situation.