Suspended IPS officer G.L. Singhal is to be reinstated as Group Commandant of the State Reserve Police. The government issued the order on Wednesday morning and he would resume work soon, said S.K. Nanda, Additional Chief Secretary, Home.
Mr. Singhal was suspended one-and-half years ago after his arrest in the Ishrat Jahan case. He resigned after his suspension, but it was not accepted. Last May, a special CBI court in Ahmedabad gave him bail, along with three other officers, in the encounter case on the ground that the CBI had not filed a charge sheet within the stipulated 90-day period. In July, however, the CBI charge sheeted Mr. Singhal and others.
While investigating the case, the CBI seized a pen drive from Mr. Singhal’s house during a raid. Some of the taped material allegedly contained conversations between Mr. Singhal and former Minister of State Amit Shah, in which the duo is purportedly planning to snoop on a woman architect, at the behest of ‘saheb’. In the tapes, Mr. Shah is also reported to have asked Mr. Singhal to increase the personnel for surveillance.
It was alleged that ‘saheb’ was a reference to the former Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi.
