'Not interested to confront Centre on Chief Sec reappointment'

With the Centre understood to have rejected Uttarakhand Chief Secretary Rakesh Sharma's reappointment to the post on his retirement, Chief Minister Harish Rawat today said he did not want any confrontation with the central government on the issue.
"The state government has received a letter from the DoPT following reappointment of Mr Sharma to the post of Chief Secretary. Let us see what is written in it. We will first study its contentand then convey our response to the Centre," Rawat told reporters here.
He said the state government was in no mood for a confrontation with the Centre regarding this matter as appointment of IAS officers was a prerogative of the Centre.

A 1981 batch IAS officer, Sharma who took over as chief secretary in July this year retired on October 31.
A few days before his retirement the state government had written to the Centre seeking extension of his services but there was no response from the Centre till the date of his retirement in this regard, Rawat said.
"When we received no response from the Centre till the eleventh hour, we reappointed him to the post for three months as a session of the state assembly was scheduled to begin in Gairsain on November 2 and there was a lot of work to to be done as many proposals were to be passed including a supplementary budget," he said.

The Centre's silence in response to a request from the state government is usually interpreted as consent.
However, the Chief Minister clarified that the state government was focused on development and had no intention to enter into a confrontation with the Centre over the issue.
A letter from the DoPT to the state government is understood to have rejected Sharma's reappointment to the post on the ground thatit was a cadre post to which reappointment could not be made when senior officers eligible for the post were available with the state government.