New Delhi (25.06.2026): Delhi’s power corridors are buzzing with one question that who handed Andaman & Nicobar Chief Secretary Chandra Bhushan Kumar (IAS: 1995: AGMUT) his marching orders — or rather, his staying orders?

Kumar’s conspicuous absence from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting has raised more than a few eyebrows. The PAC is always chaired by the Opposition and in this case, it is Congress leader K C Venugopal. Insiders whisper that the bureaucratic skip was less about a busy calendar and more about dodging a tactical firing squad. The highly contentious Great Nicobar Infrastructure projects might have figured in the meeting. The Congress top brass, including Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, have been raking up the project's massive environmental fallout for long, and the PAC was primed to ask some uncomfortable questions.

Faced with a high-stakes interrogation, the strategy seemed to be simple: avoidance. Hiding things from a parliamentary committee carries the risk of disciplinary heat and unneeded headlines, but for the top bureaucrat, playing deaf and skipping town was deemed far less damaging than providing answers on the record.