A 2015-batch IAS officer in Punjab, Karnail Singh, resigned on Wednesday after he was not given any new posting following his removal as the deputy commissioner of Kapurthala on January 30. Sources close to Singh said that he was “upset” at not being allotted work.
While Singh has submitted his resignation to Chief Secretary Anurag Verma, it has to be approved by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and then cleared by the Department of Personnel and Training, Government of India. Mann, however, is in Delhi where he was to meet Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in Tihar jail. Sources said Mann will return to Punjab on Friday.
Singh was earlier a staff officer to former chief secretary V K Janjua and is due to retire on September 30. His resignation comes at a time when Punjab is facing a dearth of IAS officers and has even written to the Centre seeking more officers.
Singh is the second IAS officer to put in his papers recently. A few days ago, IAS officer Parampal Kaur, who was tipped to be the BJP candidate from the Bathinda Lok Sabha constituency, had resigned from service. Her resignation too is yet to be accepted.
This is not the first time that an IAS officer has had to wait for a posting in Punjab. IAS officers DK Tiwari (1994 batch), Nilkanth Avhad (1999 batch), Ajit Balaji Joshi (2003 batch), Neelima (2008 batch) and Gurpreet Singh Khaira (2009 batch) had to wait to get their postings.