Govt to review reappointment of retired officials by March

Many old hands at the state secretariat are likely to lose their cushy post-retirement jobs by March, reports Ketaki Ghoge.

Many old hands at the state secretariat are likely to lose their cushy post-retirement jobs by March.

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Rapped by the Bombay High Court over a plea against reappointments, the state government has decided to review reappointments granted to retired officials in all government offices and companies and terminate those that contravened the norms.

In 1995, the government had worked out contractual employment norms to hire retired officers for specialised jobs.

The norms stated that such extensions should be granted only in exceptional cases where the requisite technical knowledge or experience was not available within the existing pool of officers.

However, the exception had become a rule in many cases.

“In some cases, such appointments were done because the retired officer had technical knowledge and experience. But, often reappointments were political decisions to protect favoured officers or keep such officers who could do political bidding,” said a senior bureaucrat.

Several officials who retired as deputy and joint secretaries were granted extension up to even four times.

Such appointments were done across government departments including Chief Minister’s Office.

A plea filed by four government employees alleged that these appointments were unfair to serving employees, who found their promotions stalled because of such appointments. It pointed to various illegitimate appointments done without following government procedure.

The high court had rapped the government and asked it to review and cancel such appointments.

The state has now issued a resolution calling all heads of departments to review such appointments by March and terminate the wrong ones.

“It would be difficult to estimate but the number of those hired on contractual basis across government. As far as extensions go, they have been more or less phased out since the plea,’’ said a General Administration department (GAD) official.

Bureaucrats have been asked to submit an affidavit to the GAD stating the review done by March 31.