Absconding IPS officer taken into custody by Chhattisgarh police

A 1994-batch officer, he was earlier Additional Director General of the Anti Corruption Bureau and also served as Inspector General, Raipur. He was posted as head of the police training academy before being suspended on July 5.

A team of officials camping in Delhi managed to track him down on Tuesday.

Chhattisgarh’s suspended IPS officer was taken into custody by the state Economic Offence Wing on Tuesday. He was absconding for almost six months after he was booked for disproportionate assets and under sedition.

A 1994-batch officer, he was earlier Additional Director General (ADG) of the ACB and also served as Inspector General (IG), Raipur. He was posted as head of the police training academy before being suspended on July 5.

After his appeal to put a stay on investigation and arrest warrants against him before the High Court and later the Supreme court were rejected by the courts, he was hiding in Gurgaon, police sources said.

A team of officials were camping out in Delhi who managed to track him down on Tuesday.

According to a statement by the state EOW, the officer had been absent whenever called for investigation and was not cooperating with the agency. “Eow team has taken Singh into custody for further investigation. He is being brought to Raipur and will be presented before the court on Wednesday,” the statement read.

The ACB had carried out searches at 15 locations linked to the officer from July 1 to 3, in which several irregularities and disproportionate assets were found. During the raid at his official residence in Raipur, some torn pieces of paper were recovered from the backyard. When these pieces were re-arranged, “serious and sensitive” information was found to be written and typed on it, the FIR read.

The officer is alleged to have carried out several benami transactions and acquired disproportionate assets across 15 locations in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

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UPDATE: That the concerned officer was made to compulsorily retire from his post on basis of criminal and departmental proceedings that were as per his lawyer “instituted against him in mala-fide exercise if power driven by retaliatory motives. The Central Administrative Tribunal, principal Bench vide Order dt 30.04.2024 found that the order retiring the officer could not be sustained in eyes of law and quashed and set it aside. The High Court found the service track record of the officer involves various medals and honours which show him to be an able officer of the Indian Police Service and the FIRs appeared to be “a case of malicious prosecution…with oblique motive of personal vengeance.” And the same were quashed, and set aside. The Supreme Court did not find any reason to interfere with the orders of CAT and the HC.

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