Controversial IRS officer Neeraj Singh placed under suspension

New Delhi: Controversial Income Tax Commissioner and IRS officer, Neeraj Singh has been put under suspension by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) until departmental proceedings pending against him are completed.

The suspension order, issued on July 1, put Singh under suspension "with immediate effect" and said that his headquarters of CIT(Audit), Mumbai will be under the Pr. CCIT of Mumbai as long as the order was in force.

It also ordered that Singh "shall not leave the headquarters without obtaining the prior permission of the disciplinary authority".

Last month, the CBDT had served Singh with a chargesheet alleging that he had violated several rules of the Central Civil Services (Conduct) rules by holding the post of President in Chirag United, a football club playing in Calcutta Football League First Division, without seeking sanction of the government.

The CBDT's chargesheet also mentions that Singh had travelled abroad without seeking prior permission from the comeptent authority and the fact that he was also a named accused in a 2017 Kolkata Police FIR, filed under the Prevention of Corruption Act among others.

The Millennium Post had on June 27 reported the contents of the FIR, which had accused a Kolkata-based accountant Govind Agarwal of acting as a frontman to collect and launder the alleged tainted earnings of none other than Singh.

While Singh has publicly denied that the allegations had ever been made, the ED has taken cognizance of the Kolkata Police FIR and registered a separate Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), the equivalent of an FIR, to open an investigation into alleged instances of money-laundering. P6