IAS officer missing from foreign assignment resigned

NEW DELHI: A senior IAS officer has been deemed to have resigned from service after he reportedly failed to return after completion of his foreign assignment.

Shishir Priyadarshi, a 1980-batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, has been on unauthorised leave for over nine years. He is deemed to have resigned from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) with effect from June 1, 2006, an order issued by Department of Personnel and Training said.

57-year-old Priyadarshi had served at World Trade Organization (WTO) Geneva for eight years - first during 1997-2000 and then between 2002 and 2007. In 2001-02, he was with United Nations Development Programme.

The official records, at present, show his present status as "posting awaited" since September 1, 2008.

The action has come as he continued on foreign service beyond the period approved by the central government, the order says.

In April this year, another IAS officer Prashant was deemed to have resigned from service. He was on August 18, 2009 appointed as Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist at the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in Washington.

Prashant failed to return after completion of his tenure in 2010.

There are about ten other IAS officers who are on unauthorised leave. "Necessary action is being taken against them," a DoPT official said.