Chandigarh, Oct. 2 -- The Haryana government has granted three-months of re-employment to 1991 batch IPS officer Alok Kumar Roy. Roy, who was posted as director general of prisons and retired on September 30 from the service. The re-employment orders of the retired officer issued by the home department said that on being re-employed from October 1, Roy will be posted as director general of prisons under Rule 9(1) of the IPS Cadre Rules. The terms and conditions of his re-employment will be issued later on, the orders said. He will remain re-employed till December 31, 2025 for a period of 92 days. A retired IPS officer can be temporarily appointed to a cadre post for three months as per Rule 9(1) of the IPS Cadre Rules, 1954 provided there is no suitable cadre officer available for filling the vacancy. However, it is quite surprising that the state government re-employed a retired IPS officer on the cadre post of DG, prisons, considered a sensitive assignment, despite the fact that a number of IPS officers in the rank of director general and additional director general of police (ADGP) were available for appointment to head the prisons department. The DG rank IPS officers included Muhammad Akil who was transferred from prisons department earlier in July, OP Singh who is DG, Haryana State Narcotics Control Bureau and Ajay Singhal who is DG, human rights and litigation. Besides, there are at least eight ADGP rank officers who could have been posted to head the prisons department. Roy's batchmate, Sanjeev Jain who is DG, Human Rights Commission, has been out of favour with successive governments. There have been precedents when IPS and IAS officers have been re-employed by successive Haryana governments for three months. The BJP government under Manohar Lal Khattar had granted three months re-employment to retired IPS officer, K Selvaraj in 2021 and retired IAS officer, PK Mahapatra in 2018. During the Congress rule under Bhupinder Singh Hooda, retired IAS officer, Chhatar Singh who was the principal secretary to the chief minister (PSCM) was re-employed in 2013 by the state government in terms of Rule 9(1) of the IAS Cadre Rules, 1954. While the state governments continue to hire retired officers for three months in terms of IAS and IPS Cadre Rules, continuance of their re-employment beyond three months requires prior approval of the Central government as per rule 9(1) (b) of the cadre rules....