Former coal secretary, Prakash Chandra Parakh, must be going through similar feelings now. During his 21-month stint as coal secretary that ended with his retirement from service in December 2005, Parakh was responsible for allocating 29 coal blocks in the states of Jharkhand (12 blocks), Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Maharashtra (four blocks in each of them), Odisha (three blocks), Andhra Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh (one block each). To put that number in context, it is important to recall that between 2004 and 2011, when coal block allocations came to a halt, decisions to allocate as many as 177 coal blocks were taken. So, Parakh's record of coal block allocations was well below the monthly average of 1.8 blocks seen in that period of eight years. This was probably because he was also the one who had preferred the auction route for allocating coal blocks after having raised questions about the recommendation-based method that was being followed then.
The point here is not about Parakh or whether he had entered into criminal conspiracy before taking a decision on allocating the Talabira-II coal block in Odisha to a joint venture firm in which two state-owned companies - Mahanadi Coalfields and Neyveli Lignite had 70 per cent and 15 per cent stake, respectively, and Kumar Mangalam Birla-controlled Hindalco Industries had the remaining 15 per cent stake. Parakh has so far put out an admirable defence of his actions saying categorically that there could be no evidence of quid pro quo, necessary in framing him with charges of criminal conspiracy. He has even sought to broaden the net of inquiry by arguing that if such charges could be brought against him, there was no reason why the same charges should not be levelled against the prime minister, who was then holding the additional charge as the coal minister and had approved Parakh's decisions.
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The larger problem the Parakh case raises is about the accountability of a bureaucrat after his retirement. For how long should a bureaucrat remain responsible for acts of commission or omission after his retirement or after having taken a certain decision? In criminal law, there is a time bar of three years on raising grievances against any decision or action. Should the principle of a time bar be applied to a civil servant's actions as well? It may be argued that a civil servant's actions have a far-reaching impact on society and public policy. Therefore, grievances should allowed to be raised much after three years and hence, a time bar may lead to other complications. In that case, however, it is necessary for the government of the day to offer all possible assistance to the retired bureaucrat to have access to legal advice and relevant documents. A retired bureaucrat cannot be left to fend for himself in a situation where his past decisions, taken as an agent of a government, have become a subject of inquiry by another government or by an investigation agency in subsequent years. If that is not ensured, no serving civil servant would feel sufficiently emboldened to take decisions that they think is right in a given situation. A policy paralysis of a different type can ensue, where bureaucrats keep postponing a decision unless and until they are directed to initiate a specific course of action by the political establishment or the judiciary. If the government's top bureaucracy, thus stays away from taking initiatives and remains averse to taking decisions, governance will surely take a bigger hit.
The Parakh episode has another and perhaps an even more serious implication. This is about the post-retirement jobs that a civil servant can take up with or without the government's knowledge. After retirement, all civil servants are required to serve a cooling-off period during which they cannot take up any job that may give rise to a conflict of interest. In good old days, retired civil servants would not think of even joining the private sector for fear of compromising their integrity. Prime ministers, too, were fairly strict about granting exemptions or specific permissions to retired to bureaucrats to take up a job before the end of the cooling-off period. Former cabinet secretary B G Desmukh's request to serve the Tatas after his retirement from the government was turned down by the Chandra Shekhar government.
In the last few years, the government under Manmohan Singh has been quite liberal about granting such exemptions and permissions. Quite a few former secretaries are known to have taken up private sector jobs, where a conflict of interest was too obvious to be ignored. The cooling-off period restriction may have been over, but doubts over conflict of interest can linger if the cooling-off period is only one year. Even Parakh decided to join two companies as a director after the cooling-off period of one year and both companies had something to do with coal blocks allocation. Equally important is the absence of clear rules with regard to the cooling-off period for many regulators after they complete their tenure. It is time the government put in place more transparent and less flexible norms for jobs that can be taken up by civil servants after retirement and also regulators after they complete their tenure. Civil service reforms in this country have still a long way to go.