Sources said the Chief Minister took this action after the Supreme Court expressed displeasure against Singh in a case.
Representation image (file photo)
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath removed Principal Secretary Rajesh Singh from the Cooperative, Prisons, and Rural Development departments on Saturday. Singh, a 1991 batch IAS officer, has been placed on the waiting-for-posting list.
Sources said the Chief Minister took this action after the Supreme Court expressed displeasure against Singh in a case.
Principal Secretary Anil Garg has been given the additional charge of Prisons, Principal Secretary MP Aggarwal has been assigned the Cooperative Department, while Venkateshwar Lu will now head the Rural Development Department.
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According to reports, the Supreme Court reprimanded Rajesh Kumar Singh, Principal Secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Prison Administration Department, on Tuesday regarding the remission of prisoners’ sentences. The apex court expressed intolerance for any IAS officer who lies before the court or changes their stance for convenience.
The bench said that Singh’s affidavit submitted on August 14 was inconsistent with his statements recorded in the court’s order dated August 12. The bench remarked that certain statements in the affidavit, including those in clause (g) of paragraph five, appeared to be false.
Rajesh Kumar Singh had argued on August 12 that the delay in processing a file related to the remission of a convict’s sentence was due to the Model Code of Conduct imposed during the recent Lok Sabha elections. The bench said such conduct would only cease if some officers faced jail time and urged the state to take action against them.
Singh, however, clarified before the court that his earlier statement about the Chief Minister’s Secretariat not accepting files related to the remission of sentence was made inadvertently. The bench rebuked Singh, stating that he was not illiterate and should have understood the court’s directions. The bench took Singh’s affidavit on record and said it would investigate the matter further and issue orders on September 9.
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