Shimla: Just four months after the Himachal Pradesh government put an end to extensions, re-employment and re-engagement of retired government employees under a fiscal austerity drive, the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government has given yet another extension to retired IAS officer Ram Subhag Singh. He continues as the chief minister’s principal adviser.
Singh has been handed a fresh two-year extension, starting 1 August this year and running till 31 July 2028. This is his third consecutive extension. Retiring from the IAS in 2023, Singh was retained as principal adviser to Chief Minister Sukhu for one year. In 2024 the government gave him another two-year extension. His tenure will now stretch well past the present Congress government’s five-year term, due to end in December 2027.
The move has once again brought up questions about the government’s own policy on extensions for retired officers. In April, the chief secretary had issued a clear directive, telling departments not to propose any extension in service, re-employment or re-engagement of retired staff. Existing extensions were to end once their sanctioned period was over, and the order asked for strict compliance.
“It has been decided by the government that henceforth no proposal seeking extension in service, re-employment and re-engagement of any officer or official shall be submitted by the administrative departments,” the order issued by the acting chief secretary said.
Such proposals, if any, shall not be entertained at any level and all departments are advised to ensure strict compliance with these directions, it said. Officers and officials who are presently on extension, re-employment or re-engagement will be deemed to have retired upon completion of their tenure, it added.
What makes the latest extension politically interesting is that Singh is the officer Sukhu had targeted with serious allegations when he was Leader of the Opposition. In August 2022, during the debate on the No-Confidence Motion against the then BJP government, Sukhu had questioned Singh’s sudden removal as chief secretary after only about eleven months in the post.
Singh was appointed chief secretary by the Jai Ram Thakur-led BJP government on 5 August 2021, taking over from 1986-batch IAS officer Anil Kumar Khachi. On 11 July 2022 he was replaced by 1988-batch officer R.D. Dhiman. Dhiman superseded Singh and two other senior officers. All three were later made principal advisors to then Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur.
Speaking in the Assembly about Singh’s removal, Sukhu alleged that the Prime Minister’s Office had written to the state government about corruption charges involving the then chief secretary and asked why nothing had been done. “There is nothing called honesty in this government… The PMO sent a letter to the chief minister alleging corruption by the former chief secretary. The chief minister sat on the letter for three months before he was summoned to Delhi,” Sukhu had said.
He also claimed that a cement company looking to set up a project in Chamba was asked for a Mumbai flat worth around Rs 4 crore in the name of Singh’s son’s father-in-law as a condition for clearing the project. Sukhu said these allegations forced the BJP government to remove Singh as chief secretary.
No actual findings or proof of wrongdoing against Singh were placed before the House at the time.
The irony is hard to miss. Within a year of becoming chief minister, Sukhu has appointed the same Singh as his principal adviser, and kept extending his tenure ever since.
A senior official in the Chief Minister’s Office defended the decision. He said Singh is still handling several important assignments for the state. According to him, Singh has been central to negotiations on the inter-state Kishau hydropower project, has been coordinating the state’s position in the Bhakra Beas Management Board arrears case pending in the Supreme Court, led the work on scientifically assessing the value of Himachal’s ecological services, and helped design and implement the Congress government’s flagship Apna Parivar Sukhi Parivar Yojana that aims to support nearly two lakh economically vulnerable families.
A retired senior civil servant, though, pointed to the inconsistency. “Granting an extension is entirely the government’s call. But the questions Sukhu raised in the Assembly about Ram Subhag Singh’s removal as chief secretary have never really been answered. Now that he is the chief minister, his government should explain what changed,” the retired officer told ThePrint.
BJP parliamentarian and former state president Suresh Kashyap reacted strongly. “What is the compulsion that the government keeps giving service extension to the same person again and again? Is there some big irregularity hidden behind this that the people of the state want to know?” he asked. He added that the Chief Minister’s Office already faces serious corruption allegations, and that cases keep surfacing in the state where the threads of corruption are said to lead straight to the CMO.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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