The three-month mandatory cooling-off period has been waived for IPS officer Gupteshwar Pandey, who was DGP Bihar and who sought voluntary retirement from service (VRS). This was done to allow him join politics and possibly contest the upcoming state Assembly elections. Pandey, who shot into fame with his controversial comments on the investigation into actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide, applied for VRS and received nod from the Bihar government within 24 hours!
Normally, an officer seeking VRS has to give notice three months in advance to the government before quitting. Sources say that it takes up to two months for the government to clear the paperwork before granting retirement. In Pandey’s case, however, there was an unseemly hurry to grant his request.
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Few, however, were surprised at Pandey’s resignation from the IPS. His political ambitions had been the subject of much speculation weeks before he actually took the plunge. He has gone down this road in 2009 when he took VRS to fight the Lok Sabha elections. He lost and was reinstated into the IPS. It pays to be well-connected.
Change in Haryana
With the retirement of Haryana chief secretary Keshni Anand Arora and the appointment of principal secretary to the Chief Minister Rajesh Khullar as executive director of the World Bank, observers expect a major administrative change in the state. Several senior IAS officers are in the succession race. Among them, Vijay Vardhan, a 1985-batch IAS officer and current home secretary is the strongest claimant for the post of chief secretary. Others in the fray are the 1986 batch IAS Sanjeev Kaushal, and the 1987 batch IAS Rajeev Arora. V Umashankar, a 1993 batch IAS and additional principal secretary to CM is reported to be very close to CM Manohar Lal Khattar. Apparently, being close to the CM makes one a good contender for a plum posting.
Some observers point out that the caste factor may play an important role. Both Keshmi Anand Arora and Rajesh Khullar are Punjabis, as is Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar. So, will he choose babus from the Punjabi community to fill the slots? Will the caste factor play a role? Any guesses?
VIP squatters
There is nothing new about the reluctance of public servants to move out of the residential accommodation allotted to them after retirement from service. It has been debated in public and private by citizens and VIPs, discussed in the courts who have issued directions to governments, but not much has changed.The latest effort to ensure that government accommodation is not misused by babus is a directive from Delhi high court to the Centre to ensure that it gets illegally occupied houses vacated and recover the rental dues for the period of the illegal occupation. Apparently, according to data submitted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the government has managed to wrest 565 government accommodations which were illegally occupied by retired public servants and recovered Rs 3 crore in rental dues. However, it also stated that `9 crore was still outstanding from other illegal occupants and it has issued notices to the offenders.
For now, the dispensers of justice seem to have been appeased but this issue is not off the table. And won’t be until babus, and our worthy netas, learn to let go of their official trappings once they no longer have the privilege to enjoy them.
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