Pain of apparent humiliation came to his face when senior officer Subhash Chandra Garg (IAS:1983:RJ), who retired on October 31 on voluntary basis after he was shifted from the post of the finance secretary to the power secretary.

Without mincing word, Garg said that his postings as the head of the finance departments at the Centre and in Rajasthan ended ‘little bit unceremoniously’. “It is not that I was immune to the consequences of my independent and unconventional ways of functioning. It might be a little strange, but all my postings as chief of finance departments in the state (Rajasthan) and at the Centre ended little bit unceremoniously,” he tweeted.

The power secretary was of the view that he was an independent-minded officer who implemented bold and unconventional decisions that may have not kept his bosses in good humour sometimes. He said he could have become the longest-serving finance secretary if he had held the post until his superannuation in October 2020.