A fortnight after a Mumbai court declared him as a “proclaimed offender” in an extortion case, the Maharashtra Government suspended most senior IPS officer and Mumbai’s former Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh from service on Thursday evening, in view of serious offences registered against him and the disciplinary proceedings launched into “certain irregularities and lapses” committed by him, including his unauthorised absence from duty.
In a development that came on expected lines, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray gave a go-ahead for Singh’s suspension immediately after his return from three weeks hospitalisation.
Singh — who had created a sensation on March 20 this year by alleging that State Home Minister Anil Deshmukh had asked now arrested and dismissed police officer Sachin Vaze to “collect” a staggering Rs 100 crore per month from bars, restaurants and other sources in Mumbai — has been booked for several serious offences registered against him in four different police stations in Mumbai and neighbouring Thane district.
Among other things, Singh’s suspension order listed the cases registered against him at Marine Drive Police Station in Mumbai, and in Thane district at Bazarpeth Police Station, Kalyan, Kopari Police Station and Thane Nagar Police Station, both in Thane city.