New Delhi: Four members of the Union Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav’s team have been removed from their positions, according to orders passed on 3 July 2026, a copy of which ThePrint has seen.
While Ayush Saran, Additional Private Secretary, and Siddharth Yadav, Assistant Private Secretary, have been terminated and relieved of their duties, the other two officials—Amar Singh, Private Secretary, and Shailesh Kumar Singh, Private Secretary, have been repatriated to their original cadres.
According to the office order passed by the MOEFCC, Amar Singh is back to the Revenue Department. Singh is an IRS officer of the 2010 batch, and had been appointed as Yadav’s private secretary in the MOEFCC in 2024. Earlier, he had served as Yadav’s secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Environment from 2021 to 2024.
Shailesh Kumar Singh, a Central Secretariat Service (CSS) official from the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), was on deputation to the MOEFCC. The office order said that he is being relieved from his MOEFCC duties, and being given an “extended cooling off period”. After this, he has been asked to report to the Department of Personnel & Training, under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.
Ayush Saran, who was appointed in June 2024, was removed from his position and the order did not specify any other posting for him. Siddharth Yadav too was removed in a similar manner, with no future posting details.Yadav too had been appointed to the Minister’s personal staff in June 2024.
While the government did not reveal any reasons for the abrupt removal of four high-level officials from the MOEFCC in one day, the orders drew criticism on social media from Opposition parties. Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Sabha MP of the Indian National Congress and former Union Environment Minister took to X to call the order “shocking.”
“The news of four members of the staff of the Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change being sacked is shocking,” said Ramesh’s post on X. “Can so much smoke rise without fire?”
Supriya Shrinate, spokesperson for Indian National Congress, also posted on X saying this is “not an ordinary matter.”
“What kind of shady dealings were going on? The public has the right to know the truth about any irregularities,” she said on X.
ThePrint has reached out to the MOEFCC for comments, and the copy will be updated once it responds.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)