HYDERABAD: A day after hitherto absconding IAS officer Subhrendu Bhattacharya moved into government quarters and a fortnight after he took charge as the commissioner of inquiries, bureaucratic circles are still wondering what were the compulsions that made the state government accept him back after he remained untraceable for eight years. Bhattacharya’s colleagues, who have not taken kindly to his return, are also trying to figure out why, after all, and after so long, did the officer surface.

TOI’s investigations reveal that the case of Bhattacharya, an officer of the 1976 batch of the IAS, is that of unfulfilled dreams. A man with divergent personality traits, the officer who hails from UP is known to be academically inclined; he also has an extremely sweet manner of speech albeit with a mediocre service record. But that's about all - his colleagues in the IAS would not recommend him for anything else. In fact, he reneged on repayment of a housing loan from the State Bank of Hyderabad that could be settled only with great difficulty.

Those who know him well say that the officer fancied himself in the role of a great academic specialising in economic matters. He first began entertaining these ideas when he went to the UK for a year in 1986 on a scholarship to do MSc in Finance. Though he again went to the UK 10 years later in 1996 for six weeks, Bhattacharya's ambitions remained unfulfilled till 2000, when after many unimportant postings in the government, he was serving as managing director in the AP State Irrigation Development Corporation (APSIDC). Having secured admission for a PhD course in a US university in Chicago, Bhattacharya pushed off on August 1, 2000. The exit was dramatic - the officer took causal leave and disappeared- presumably to the US. After waiting for a few months, during which the government officially had no idea of where Bhattacharya was, a new incumbent was named at APSIDC. In fact, the government asked the new incumbent - Mohd Shafiquzzaman - to figure out the whereabouts of Bhattacharya. He refused. Much later, the general administration department first granted him “leave” till November 11, 2001, and then "extraordinary leave" for three years till Sept 20, 2004.

Thereafter, nothing was heard from him and claiming that she was Bhattacharya's wife Durga phoned up to say that the officer had passed away. But obviously somebody may have been playing mischief because the officer was hale and hearty. After completing his PhD, Bhattacharya - say sources - started looking for teaching assignments. For starters, he got some jobs - he was with the Illinois Institute of Technology, and then with very little known universities such as the National Louis University (where he was faculty at the College of Management and Business) and then at the De Paul University in Chicago. During this period that extended till the end of 2006, the officer was doing academic work on subjects as diverse as dividends, tax cuts, investment scenario, corporate governance and pension industry.

But thereafter, his luck ran out. No academic institute in the US was ready to certify to the Immigration & Naturalisation Services (INS) that Bhattacharya brought with him such skills that were not found in the US and was thus indispensable, say sources. So, perforce, after hanging around for sometime, the officer returned home.