Advise SEC not to exceed his domain: Andhra govt to DoPT

Amaravati, Jan 28 : The Andhra Pradesh government has written to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) to ignore State Election Commissioner (SEC) Nimmagadda Ramesh Kumar’s recommendation to compulsory retirement of two IAS officers, and also advise him not to exceed his domain.
“I, therefore, request to refuse to take cognizance of the proceedings issued by the SEC against the member of services and also to advise the SEC not to exercise the power which is not in his domain and adhere to the guidelines in the matter,” said an official in the letter addressed to the DoPT Secretary, which was shared on Thursday.
According to the state government, Kumar censured Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Principal Secretary Gopal Krishna Dwivedi and Commissioner M. Girija Shankar for alleged dereliction of duty in their work related to the gram panchayat elections.
The AP government highlighted that the SEC failed to follow due procedure prescribed under All India Service (AIS, D & A) rules, 1969.
“SEC has written a very derogatory letter against the named officers to the Secretary, DoPT for their compulsory retirement. This step of SEC also doesn’t fall under his competence and suffers from jurisdictional error,” the official observed.
He said that the Election Commission is empowered to suspend any officer working under the central government, public sector undertaking or autonomous body fully or partially funded by the government for insubordination or dereliction of duty, besides making recommendations to the competent authority for taking disciplinary action while engaged in the preparation of electoral rolls or election duty.