File photo of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Before she was appointed the acting chief secretary -- which triggered the latest feud between Delhi's Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung and the Aam Aadmi Party government -- senior bureaucrat Shakuntala Gamlin had written a letter to Mr Jung.
In it, she had alleged that she was pressured by the chief minister's office to withdraw her name from the race for the post on account of her alleged closeness to power companies in Delhi and lobbying for them. The government's allegations "could not be further removed from facts," she wrote.
The officer assumed additional charge as the acting chief secretary today, ignoring Mr Kejriwal's request to turn down the job. Sources close to Ms Gamlin said she was following the instructions of the Lieutenant Governor, the appointing authority of the UT cadre, else it would amount to dereliction of duty.
As for the government's charges of lobbying for power companies, "Don't know where the allegations are coming from," said the source. "Guarantee letters have been issued earlier. This is a technical aspect. Why it is being made into an issue now is a big story," the source said.
In a letter to the Lieutenant-Governor, Power Minister Satyendra Jain, meanwhile, has asked him to remove her from the post of power secretary. The letter also detailed the government's reservations against the officer.
Ms Gamlin, the letter said, had been requesting the minister to write a guarantee letter to the Power Finance Corporation -- a state owned body dedicated to power financing -- for loans to certain power firms.
Agreeing to it would have forced the Delhi government to pay a liability running into thousands of crores if the power company defaulted on payments. It could have even forced the government to hike power tariffs, the minister wrote.