New Delhi: The Gujarat government on January 1, 2019, promoted IPS officer G.L. Singhal, a key accused in the 2004 Ishrat Jahan encounter case to the rank of Inspector General of Police (IGP).
Singhal was arrested by the CBI in 2013 and was granted bail as the central probing agency did not file a chargesheet within the stipulated time.
Not too long after, in May 2014, Singhal was reinstated and promoted to Deputy Inspector General.
Singhal submitted 267 audio clips ad other evidence to the CBI after he was arrested. The files contained conversations between senior police officer G.L. Singhal and Amit Shah, now BJP president, who was the Gujarat minister of state for home at the time.
The clips revealed how a snooping operation was conducted from August to September 2009, in which a close watch was kept on the movements of a 35-year-old female architect working from Ahmedabad and Bhuj at the behest of a mysterious person who was only referred to as “Saheb”.
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The ‘saheb’ was later identified as Modi, who was Gujarat chief minister at the time. The tapes, as an investigation by Cobrapost.com and Gulail.com revealed, were used as a bargaining chip by Singhal to turn approver in the case in return for bail.
This isn’t the first time the Gujarat government has rewarded a police officer who has been chargesheeted for murder.
In 2016, although he was set to retire in just a few months, the state government gave P.P. Pandey the ‘additional charge’ of Gujarat police chief.
Pandey, who was discharged from prosecution in the Tulsiram Prajapati fake encounter case and is on bail in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case. He was given a post-retirement extension by the Gujarat government, enabling him to continue in the position for three months.
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In April, the Supreme Court dismissed retired IPS officer Julio Ribeiro’s petition challenging P.P. Pandey’s appointment as DGP. The Gujarat government then communicated to the court that it had accepted Pandey’s resignation with immediate effect.
As The Wire previously reported, “The resignation and its acceptance, which was in essence a concession by the Gujarat government, thus avoided a possible Supreme Court judgment against that government.”
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In all, six IPS officers and deputy inspector general (DIG) rank officers of the 2001 batch have been promoted to IGP. Among them is Vipul Aggarwal, who is currently posted in Ahmedabad as additional commissioner of police (administration). Aggarwal was involved in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case from which he was discharged. In this case, a special CBI court in Mumbai acquitted all the accused last month.