Andhra Pradesh government on Thursday granted three-month extension to Chief Secretary Minnie Mathew even as various cases pertaining to flouting of norms in the cadre management are pending against it before Central Administrative Tribunal.

Mathew, an IAS officer of 1976 batch, was due to retire from service today, but the state government sought permission from Centre to retain her as Chief Secretary for three more months, sources said.

The Centre communicated its consent to state government today, based on which a formal order was issued in the evening extending Mathew's tenure, they said. Prasanna Kumar Mohanty, an IAS officer of 1979 batch, who just returned to the state service from Central deputation, was in fact supposed to succeed Mathew as top bureaucrat but the state government backed out at the last minute because of legal complications involved, according to sources.

The state government was in a way left with no option but to extend Matthew's tenure, despite her reported reluctance, as it was facing the legal trouble in the form of CAT cases filed by some IAS officers over flouting of norms in cadre management, particularly in relation to chief secretary-rank posts.

Sources said that by extending Mathew's service, the government only sought to buy time to wriggle it out of legal issues. Andhra Pradesh has five cadre posts for the CS-rank officers though there are at present 10 IAS of that rank serving in the state. 1978 batch IAS officer M Samuel had filed a petition before CAT last week seeking a direction to state government to consider his candidature for the Chief Secretary's post. Samuel was till recently the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration but recently shifted back to the Environment and Forests Department as Special Chief Secretary, which is not a cadre post.