Suspended forest official in ACB net

Singh had been been under the ACB scanner, just five years after joining the Forest service in 1983, and four cases had been registered against him since he joined the government service.

ACB superintendent of police C H Wakade said during the raid they had seized passbooks and chequebooks of 29 bank accounts and documents of 44 land and business transactions from his residence. He said while total earnings from all known sources of income of the Singh family between 1983 and June 2003 was Rs 1,40,78,505 and savings Rs 1,50,600, the ACB had found their assets were worth Rs 2,10,67,185 — unaccounted assets being Rs 1,09,16,486.

Wakade said besides residential and commercial properties at Allied Heights at Kondhwa, Singh also had a flat at Sahyadri Terrace at Kondhwa. He also had benami properties at Bhavadi, Wagholi, Lohegaon, Wardha and Aurangabad. In addition to it, Singh and wife had shares of infotech companies and savings certificates.

Wakade said investigations also revealed that they did transactions of diamonds and handled 50 bank accounts. Incidentally, in 1998, under the voluntary disclosure of income statement, Singh’s wife had disclosed some unaccounted assets.

Singh, who is from Varanasi, started off his career as a journalist with a Hindi daily and later worked as a lecturer at Jawaharlal Nehru Degree College in Lucknow. He joined the IFS in 1983. He has been suspended twice during his government service.

In fact, Singh fearing arrest had tried all means to get an anticipatory bail — from district court to the Supreme Court — but his application was rejected.

Meanwhile, in Mumbai, the ACB raided the residence of suspended assistant commissioner of sales tax A S Jaiswal.