Hyderabad
The Andhra Pradesh authorities has determined to border a selected coverage for the appointment of advisors following the state excessive court docket’s observations over their indiscriminate appointment inflicting a burden on the state exchequer.
An affidavit to this impact was submitted by principal secretary (political) of state common administration division Revu Muthyala Raju to the excessive court docket on Tuesday.
In line with the affidavit, a duplicate of which was reviewed by HT, a brand new coverage on appointment of advisers could be formulated and despatched to the state cupboard for approval. It has been proposed that every one the appointments of advisors, hereafter, could be within the capability of advisors just for the respective ministers.
“The incumbent advisors may even be re-designated as advisors to ministers just about the topic areas that the mentioned advisors are at present engaged in,” it mentioned.
The federal government mentioned all of the advisors hereafter would come beneath the definition of “public servant” discharging “public obligation” as outlined within the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The state authorities additional mentioned that every of the appointees shall be obligated to signal an affidavit of confidentiality and non-disclosure with a strict regime of enforcement.
“Any want for the appointment of advisors shall be initiated by the ministers in writing and the identical needs to be accredited by the chief minister. The appointment shall be for a interval of two years topic to renewal for additional such comparable time interval after verification of antecedents. The duties shall be outlined,” the affidavit mentioned.
Because the engagement of advisors relies on time and want requirement of the respective ministers, care shall be taken to make sure that such engagements are narrowly carved out to satisfy particular necessities. There shall be a periodic assessment about that want and necessity and suitability of the engaged individual, the official mentioned within the affidavit.
The Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy authorities has been going through extreme criticism from the opposition and different sections over the appointment of advisors to the federal government on numerous topics.
Within the final 4 years, greater than 40 advisors have been appointed since 2019, eight of them in cupboard rank, by paying them hefty salaries other than perks together with autos, residential lodging and private employees.
Within the final one 12 months, there was a collection of public curiosity litigations within the state excessive court docket over the appointment of advisors to the state authorities, inflicting enormous burden on the state exchequer.
Listening to a batch of petitions in January this 12 months difficult appointment of J Srikanth as advisor for the endowments division and that of N Chandrasekhar Reddy as advisor for worker welfare, a division bench of the excessive court docket comprising chief justice Prashanth Kumar Mishra and justice D V S S Somayajulu, puzzled if an advisor could be appointed for workers’ TA and DA.
The bench noticed that the appointment of advisors was not custom and mentioned it was a harmful pattern.
State advocate common Subrahmanyam Sriram advised the court docket that the federal government is appointing ‘certified individuals’ as advisors. He argued that the federal government would take the recommendation of those individuals earlier than making ultimate selections.