The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on Thursday reserved the order on a petition challenging the appointment of Shashank Shekhar Singh as cabinet secretary by the Mayawati government. Singh, a pilot-turned-bureaucrat, was also given the status of a Cabinet minister.

The PIL, filed by Shiv Prakash Shukla, also challenged the creation of the post of cabinet secretary by the UP government and appointment of a non-IAS officer for it.

Contending that the post of cabinet secretary may overshadow and undermine the post of chief secretary, who is governed by the All India Service Rules, the PIL argued that the accountability of cabinet secretary’s decisions, which will have financial implications, too, had not been fixed.

The petition also raised objection to giving Rs 30,000 salary to the cabinet secretary since it was higher than the maximum pay scale of an IAS officer in the state, which was then Rs 26,000, said petitioner’s counsel Altaf Mansor. Amid brewing resentment in the IAS cadre and legal implications, Singh later relinquished the status of cabinet minister and also chose to shed the powers of chief secretary that were conferred on him through an amendment. He, however, continues to be the cabinet secretary.