This SP is an ex-IAS officer

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">HAJIPUR: An SP is usually an IPS officer. Vaishali SP H N Deva''s is a different story. He is what he calls "an IAS brain in IPS uniform". Yes, Deva was an IAS officer of the 1980 batch, thus senior to even Anjani Kumar Singh, divisional commissioner of Tirhut under which Vaishali district falls.<br /><br />But that is when Deva talks about past. Today, he is an IPS officer, promoted from the rank of deputy SP. But Deva won''t let his visitors know only about the present. The successors'' chart at his office and residence tells every visitor the current incumbent is an "ex-IAS". <br /><br />The name plates at his office and residence read: H N Deva, ex-IAS, IPS.<br /><br />Ask Deva why he wants to be known as an "ex-IAS, IPS" and not only as "an IPS" like other SPs, and pat comes the reply: "If a former minister can be known as an ex-minister, what''s harm in myself, who resigned from the IAS to end up as a police officer, being known as an ex-IAS?"<br /><br />Recounting his IAS days when he was posted as Tulu sub-division SDO in Nagaland, Deva said he quit the IAS because his superior asked him an awkward question. <br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br />"The other day I went to the DC office for some official work and the DC bluntly asked me ‘when did you come here from India?'' India in Nagaland then meant non-Nagaland states of India and the locals called non-native officers Indians," Deva, a Chhapra native, recalled. That question kept haunting Deva till he called it a day after three years in the IAS.<br /><br />In 1983, Deva cleared BPSC''s civil services examination and got police service to be posted as DSP (law and order) in Patna. The officer is known in IPS circle as an encyclopaedia of "everything under the sky, over the earth" because he has still remained an avid reader of books of all subjects.<br /><br />So, how does he feel saluting officers, who would have been junior to him had he been a 1980 batch IAS officer but who are senior because he is a 1983 batch Bihar police officer, promoted to the IPS? "Nothing so baffling... I do my official duty. But in private life and conversation, we share a friendly company," he told TNN.<br /><br />Becoming an IAS officer was "my passion", said Deva, who served as a Bhagalpur varsity lecturer before clearing IAS. But "the non-friendly atmosphere of Nagaland" forced him to quit, albeit with a heavy heart. <br /><br />"I use my administrative skills and brain while policing and I never maintain ‘IPS-<span style="" font-style:="" italic="">wallah rutba''</span>," he said.<br /><br />And yes, ex-IAS has always been there after his name on the successors'' plate — whether he was posted in the BMP or vigilance.<br /><br />"I derive solace from it... It gives me a sense of being an IAS officer by nature, IPS officer by profession," Deva, ex-IAS, explained.</div> </div>