THE Chhattisgarh High Court’s division bench comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Ravindra Agrawal quashed all three FIRs filed against dismissed IPS officer GP Singh, terming them acts of ‘malicious prosecution.’ The cases, registered during the previous Congress-led Government, accused Singh of sedition, disproportionate assets (DA), and extortion. This decision marks a major legal relief for Singh, a 1994-batch officer, who had spent 120 days in jail and was dismissed from service based on these allegations.

 

The FIRs were filed by the State Economic Offences Investigation and Anti-Corruption Bureau (SEOIACB) and the police in Bhilai’s Supela and Raipur. Singh’s legal team, led by senior counsel Ramesh Garg (appearing virtually) and advocate Himanshu Pandey (appearing physically), argued that the cases were baseless and politically motivated. In the DA case, the defence highlighted that the gold allegedly seized by the SEOIACB was not linked to Singh. Neither the individual from whom the gold was recovered nor the scooter used to transport it was connected to Singh or his family. In the extortion case, filed at Supela police station, the defence argued that the case was registered years after the alleged incident, suggesting retaliatory intent. In the sedition case, Singh’s counsel pointed out that torn papers recovered from his premises lacked evidence of conspiracy. The forensic report from the SEOIACB could not substantiate the claims, making the charge untenable. After evaluating these arguments, the court ruled that the FIRs were part of a malicious prosecution and directed their cancellation.