ED officer Niranjan Singh had questioned Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia in connection with one of the drug haul cases.
Chandigarh: Senior Enforcement Directorate officer Niranjan Singh who quit last week citing personal reasons withdrew his resignation Thursday. Singh was supervising the investigation into the high-profile drug haul cases in Punjab.
Posted in Jalandhar, Singh sent a request to the ED director in New Delhi saying his request for voluntary retirement may be ignored.
A deputy director of the ED, Singh had questioned powerful Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia in December 2014 in connection with one of the drug haul cases.
Also read: ED officer who questioned Akali leader Majithia in multi-crore drug bust case resigns
In his request to the ED Thursday, Singh did not give any reason why he was withdrawing his resignation, a move that came within hours of the matter being brought before a special bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court hearing the drug cases.
Advocate Navkiran Singh, a petitioner in one of the drug cases who brought Singh’s resignation to the notice of the bench, asked the court to intervene and direct the ED not to accept his resignation.
As assistant director, Singh had taken up the investigation into the multi-crore international drug racket busted by the Punjab police in 2013.
During the probe, he questioned then revenue minister Majithia after one of the kingpins of an international synthetic drug racket, Jagdish Singh alias Bhola, named him in a case. Majithia is the brother of Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal.
Singh had filed six chargesheets in the case.
In October 2016, Singh was promoted to the post of deputy director and made the supervisory officer of the case. The day-to-day investigation was handed over to two other officers under Singh.
Less than a month after he questioned Majithia, Singh was transferred to Kolkata in January 2015. His transfer was challenged in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which issued a stay order, asking him to continue with the investigation into the “Bhola drug cases”. In November 2015, Niranjan’s transfer orders were revoked by the ED.
Arguments in court
Senior advocate Anupam Gupta who is representing Singh told the bench Thursday that his client had in May this year submitted a report in which he had clearly informed the court that the officers working under him had neither questioned any witness nor attached any property since 2017.
Gupta said it was clear that the ED was frustrating every effort to take the case forward.
“These drug cases impinge upon not just the politics of the state but the health and future of the youth,” said Gupta.
Also read: Will making prescription opium available help solve Punjab’s drug menace or aggravate it?
Pointing out that Singh enjoyed the protection of the court and had been asked to actively supervise the case, Gupta argued that both the ED director and the ministry of finance, which controls the ED, are “guilty of contempt of the high court for subverting and frustrating the investigation”.
Heading the special division bench, Chief Justice Krishna Murari said the bench would not hesitate to take action against any person or authority, however high he may be, if they found that contempt had been committed.
Singh was present in the court through the hearing of the case.