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Officer's transfer stirs a hornet's nest

The transfer of a woman IAS official under abnormal circumstances has kicked up a storm in Kerala.

Chief Minister E K Nayanar announced the transfer of the senior IAS official, Nalini Netto, from the transport department to the taxes department after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

One section claims the transfer came after Transport Minister A Neelalohita Dasan Nadar made sexual advances, while the other claims these charges were being made by the high caste anti-reservation lobby because the minister advocated reservations for all the backward sections.

The minister has denied the charge that appeared in a section of the media that he had misbehaved with Netto, who worked under his ministry as transport secretary. Netto has admitted that she has differences with the minister but refuses to provide details.

"I have informed the proper authority about it," she told journalists who surrounded her after the cabinet meeting.

Though the meeting, during which the minister allegedly made sexual advances to Netto, occurred on on December 21, she sent a letter of complaint to the chief minister only on February 1. The cabinet approved her transfer on February 9. Netto had also not complained to the IAS Officers Association, which takes up personal matters related to the members. It isn't clear why Netto waited till February 1 before she wrote a complained.

The minister says the sexual angle was cooked up after he wrote the chief minister, asking that she be shifted from his department following some serious lapses. Nadar said Netto was reluctant to carry out government directives and delayed the discharging the responsibilities assigned to her.

The minister said the issue that soured relations was over the appointment of an agency to study the traffic and transport arrangements in Thiruvananthapuram. He said the transport secretary had refused to show him files that contained details of the Delhi-based Consultancy Engineering Service that she had recommended should carry out the study. He said he had sought the files after an opposition MLA had pointed out that the same agency had conducted a similar study in 1991. The MLA had also hinted at something fishy about the same agency being chosen, the transport minister said.

Nadar said he had directed the transport secretary on January 21 to produce the file.

"When she refused to comply with the direction even after a reminder, I sent a note to the chief minister on February 1, requesting him to shift Mrs Nalini Netto from my department," Nadar said. The minister said Netto had made her charges against him only after the chief minister placed his note in the cabinet.

Netto has refused to elaborate on the charge the minister had made. She said that the files would reveal the truth.

The IAS Officers Association is apparently disturbed by the controversy. Association secretary Vinod Rai said the association would like to look into the issue. However, he said he had received no complaint from anybody about the incident.

Nayanar has tried to underplay the incident. He said that the transfer was carried out because the finance minister sought Netto's services. But not many believe the chief minister since Nadar insists that he had sent a note on February 1 asking for Netto's removal.

Nalini Netto, reputed to be an efficient officer, has often avoided working with certain ministers. She had refused to work as the tourism secretary under Aryadan Mohammad in 1995 and was shifted to the co-operation department as its registrar.

The pro-reservation group in the state believes the matter has much to do with the differences between the caste lobbies following the Supreme Court direction to implement the creamy layer norm in reservations.

They say that the high caste lobby was upset that the minister, who belongs to the Janata Dal, had expressed strong opinions over the appointment of a commission to study the representation of the backward classes in government services and to revise the income limit for the creamy layer.

The minister had sought a review petition against the Supreme Court order that quashed the Kerala Act, denying that any creamy layer among the other backward classes was eligible for reservations. One Janata Dal leader said he suspected the hand of the anti-reservation lobby since Netto is a Brahmin.

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