Supreme Court refuses to pass direction on cooling off period for IAS, IPS

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has rejected a petition asking it to bar retired bureaucrats from being reemployed by the government or the private sector, or to set a cooling off period before they can be employed again.

A bench comprising Justices P Sathasivam, Ranjana Prakash Desai and Ranjan Gogoi, dismissed the plea by retired IPS officer Prakash Singh, who has been working to insulate the bureaucracy and the police from political pulls and pressures, asking it to draw up guidelines to regulate extensions or post-retirement sinecures.

“It is for the appropriate government to take a decision. You can’t go into all these things,” Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam told Singh’s lawyer Harish Salve. Salve had contended that there were no clear definite guidelines on the reemployment of bureaucrats and that they can’t be reemployed in its absence.

But the court shot down his argument. “Suppose he is an expert whose services are required, can he not be engaged by the government? How can you say that he cannot be engaged by the government?”