Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
Hyderabad, Oct 23 (IANS) Senior Telangana IAS officer Syed Ali Murtaza Rizvi has taken voluntary retirement following differences with Excise Minister Jupalli Krishna Rao over high-security liquor hologram tenders.
Rizvi, who was the Principal Secretary of the Commercial Taxes and Excise Department, took voluntary retirement on Wednesday. The officer, known for his integrity, cited personal reasons for seeking voluntary retirement.
The State Government notified this and assigned full additional charge to Commercial Taxes Commissioner M. Raghunandan Rao as Secretary, Revenue (Commercial Taxes and Excise) Department.
A letter written by Jupalli Krishna Rao to the Chief Secretary on Wednesday, urging him to reject Rizvi’s application for voluntary retirement in view of alleged “serious misconduct”, surfaced on Thursday.
The minister cited the earlier letter written by him, in which he exposed the IAS officer’s acts as serious misconduct and attracting criminal liability. The letter read, “It is learned that the above mentioned member of the Indian Administrative Service has applied for voluntary retirement from the service. In view of the alleged serious misconduct, please take steps to ensure that the said VR application is rejected and not approved by the competent authority.”
Krishna Rao had accused Rizvi of deliberately delaying the tender process for high-security holograms to be placed on sealed liquor bottles. Thus the IAS officer has given permission to an old vendor to continue working.
The hologram has a barcode and an IT-based tracking system that helps prevent illegal liquor trade, counterfeit bottles and excise tax evasion. The excise department can trace every bottle from the distillery to the retail outlet with the help of hologram.
The Excise Minister claimed that he had been writing letters to the IAS officer since August last year to speed up the process of tenders. In September, Rizvi removed himself from the post of chairman and proposed reconstituting the expert committee for the tender process. The minister rejected the proposal, but Rizvi bypassed the minister and sent the file to the Chief Minister.
A total of 23 companies had submitted bids by April 2025, but the tender process did not proceed further. Amid the standoff, Rizvi applied for voluntary retirement.
Meanwhile, main opposition party Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) has alleged that IAS and IPS officers are taking voluntary retirement due to harassment by the Congress government.
BRS working president KT Rama Rao on Thursday said the officials were refusing to be part of the conflict among ministers over distribution of corruption money.
He said that Minister Krishna Rao is so angry with IAS officer Rizvi for not following his orders that he wants the application for voluntary retirement to be rejected.
Rama Rao said that the officers knew that if they became complicit in the lawlessness and irregularities being perpetrated by the Congress Party, they would have to go to jail like some officers in the past.
–IANS
ms/vd