NCB’s Gyaneshwar Singh moved out of south west region

Narcotics Control Bureau deputy director general Gyaneshwar Singh has been divested of the additional charge of the south west region which includes Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh

Mumbai: Narcotics Control Bureau deputy director general Gyaneshwar Singh has been divested of the additional charge of the south west region which includes Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Sachin Jain who was DDG at the NCB headquarter in Delhi has been given dedicated charge of the region.

Mumbai, India - October 27, 2021: NCB Deputy Director General (DDG) Gyaneshwar Singh reaches NCB office with his five-member team, in Mumbai, India, on Wednesday, October 27, 2021. (Photo by Satish Bate/Hindustan Times) (Satish Bate/HT PHOTO)

Singh, who recently conducted a vigilance probe in the irregularities into last year’s Cordelia drug bust in Mumbai, had been holding additional charge of the south west region after senior IPS officer Mutha Ashok Jain completed his 5-year-tenure with the NCB this September and was repatriated to his home cadre, Uttar Pradesh.

Singh will continue to head the special vigilance team in NCB, and also holds charge of north, north west regions and also the west region including states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Leh Ladakh, Chandigarh and Delhi.

Singh recently submitted a 3000-page internal vigilance report to the NCB director general Satya Narayan Pradhan in the high-profile Cordelia drug bust and found several irregularities in the investigation led by the then zonal director Sameer Wankhede and his team. In his report Singh recommended taking departmental action against at least seven NCB officers including those from the bureau, those on loan during the case, those in the NCB’s Mumbai office, and some who have already been served charge sheets.

Just a day before some of the findings of Singh’s inquiry into the Cordelia case were made public, NCB’s former zonal director Sameer Wankhede filed a complaint with the National Commission for scheduled Castes alleging that Singh harassed and humiliated him for his caste during the course of the internal inquiry. The commission then said that till the completion of its inquiry against Singh, no action should be taken against Wankhede by the NCB in the Cordelia case.