The government of Uttar Pradesh has recently shunted the Principal Secretary of Jail Administration and Reform Services, IAS Rajesh Kumar Singh (1991 batch), replacing him with Anil Garg. His other department, Cooperative, has been handed over to IAS M P Agarwal (1997 batch).
Officer Singh faced punitive measures after the Supreme Court reprimanded him for giving misleading information to the court. The SC had observed that in the matter of pardoning convicts, the relevant file had been delayed with Singh. The apex court also noted that the officer took two different stands before the court on August 12th and August 14th, initially claiming that the file could not be cleared as the MCC for the Lok Sabha polls was in place. Officer Singh on August 14th changed his stand to say that the delay had taken place inadvertently.
