Supreme Court order a blessing to suspended officials

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The recent Supreme Court order restricting the suspension of government officials pending chargesheet to 90 days could be a blessing for many tainted officials. But it could also be a setback to many officials who consider suspension as a blessing in disguise.

With the SC’s fresh directive,  officials cannot  be placed under suspension for more that 90 days without filing the chargesheet. At present, suspension of officials is reviewed after six months by the designated review committees and usually it is extended a couple of times even as the chargesheet is pending. The fresh SC directive would put an end to this practice.

“The SC verdict could be cited by officials under suspension while their cases are reviewed. However, in case of officials holding key posts like that if heads of institutions, the government could resist their claim. Otherwise, such officials will have to be posted in less significant posts,” said Vigilance additional director of prosecution Vakkom Saseendran.

Usually,  it takes many years to file chargesheets against those under suspension. Hence, many officials under suspension facing Vigilance investigations may seek revival of their suspension in the wake of the fresh SC directive. IAS officer T.O. Sooraj and IPS officer Rahul R. Nair  are now under suspension pending chargesheet.

Meanwhile, there are a good number of tainted officials who consider suspension as a blessing in disguise. “In many cases, the government used to revoke suspension and later sanction salary for the period under suspension. In effect,  the officials will get salary without working, which is a huge loss to the government,” a senior officer at the secretariat pointed out.

In a similar instance, State Information Commissioner K. Natarajan,  who is  under suspension since  Nov. 2012, is learnt to have received about Rs 10 lakh recently as his remuneration for the period under suspension.

An IPS officer, who was earlier suspended a couple of times, had once quipped that he could make use of the suspension period to focus more on his private business without leave and also use the lumpsum amount received after revoking suspension for business purposes.