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Mumbai, July 5: The CBI officer supervising the probe into the Adarsh scam was shunted out today, a day after his team filed a chargesheet in the case naming former chief minister Ashok Chavan and 12 others.
Rishi Raj Singh, the joint director of the CBI’s anti-corruption bureau, was transferred to the agency’s economic offences wing (EOW).
Although the CBI termed the transfer routine — part of 10 reassignments of senior officers — the move has raised eyebrows in political circles at a time the investigating agency has been facing criticism for being “soft” on Sushil Kumar Shinde and Vilasrao Deshmukh. Both leaders were chief ministers before Chavan and had held office when the housing society project began to take shape.
Singh had also supervised the probe into two corruption cases involving the defence ministry.
The officer said today: “Yes, I have been transferred to the EOW wing of the CBI. I don’t know the reason for the transfer, nor would I like to comment.”
The transfer of Singh, who had held the post of joint director of the anti-corruption bureau for over four years, surprised many in the agency.
He is expected to hand over charge tomorrow to Keshav Kumar, who is now the head of the technical, forensic and co-ordination zone in New Delhi.
Singh had earlier served as police superintendent, deputy commissioner and commissioner in Kerala. He was the deputy inspector-general of the Special Protection Group from 1999 to 2004.
As inspector-general, vigilance, of the Kerala State Electricity Board, Singh had led a crackdown on power theft.
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