The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) directed reinstatement of Gurjinder Pal Singh (IPS: 1994: CG) within four weeks who was suspended in 2021, noting that FIRs were registered against him at the “behest of higher authorities of the then Bhupesh Baghel government” as the officer refused to toe its line.
Three FIRs were registered against the officer – a corruption case for allegedly owning disproportionate assets, a sedition case, and an extortion case. In February 2019, Singh was appointed as the head of an SIT set up to verify the allegations on former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh in an alleged multi crore public distribution system scam.
Reportedly Singh had conveyed to the then CM Bhupesh Baghel that the case against Raman Singh did not stand which infuriated the then CM, and hence “false FIRs were registered against him”. “Since he (GP Singh) did not toe the line of the higher echelons of the State Government, he was unceremoniously subjected to vindictive action by way of registering three successive FIRs within a period of less than a month,” noted the CAT order.
In the disproportionate assets FIR, it was alleged that Singh owned two kgs of gold which was recovered from one Mani Bhushan, the main witness in the case. Bhushan, however, deposed before a Raipur Court that the gold was planted by the Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) officials, and further that the content relating to the sedition case was forged.
