Last week, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) took the unusual step of removing from service a Maharashtra cadre IAS officer, L V Nilesh, who has been on unauthorised leave for over a decade and is now working with software giant Microsoft in the United States.

In its order on July 9, the DoPT said the 1991-batch officer "is deemed to have resigned from the IAS with immediate effect". However, Nilesh is yet to resign formally.

"Since there was no information from him for the last many years, he has been removed from service. He won't be entitled to any benefits," said Union Minister of State for Personnel V Narayansamy.

On July 1, 1999, Nilesh went on a two-year study leave, during which he reportedly did an MBA course from the University of Michigan. He never joined back.

Interestingly, while the Maharashtra government considered him to be on study leave from July 1, 1999 to June 30, 2001, Nilesh, now known as Nilesh Londhe, started working with California-based software firm Ariba in March 2000, according to his Facebook profile. The DoPT can initiate penal action for this.

Nilesh's Facebook page also states that he resigned from the IAS in 1999, while the Maharashtra government records state that his last posting was with the finance department where he remained till June 29, 1999, after which he went on study leave.

For the last few years, Nilesh, who did his Masters in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore before joining the civil services, has been living with his family in Sammamish, Washington. He works with Microsoft, has acquired some patents and become an expert on cloud computing, regularly blogging at http://blog.fungibleclouds.com/ and tweeting as @Cloud_Guru.

His profile on the website of the National Cloud Technologists Association (NCTA), USA, where he is a "teaching professional", describes him as playing a "leading role at the Windows division of Microsoft". It says that "among the notable products he helped develop are Windows 7, Microsoft Lync, and Windows Server OS".

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