Govt accepts ED officer Rajeshwar Singh's VRS; may contest UP polls on BJP ticket
New Delhi(PTI): Enforcement Directorate officer Rajeshwar Singh has been granted voluntary retirement from service (VRS) by the Union government. He is expected to join the BJP and contest the upcoming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
Singh, who was serving as the joint director of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Lucknow so far, tweeted to announce that he was 'hanging up his boots'.
Today my request for voluntary retirement (VRS) from the service of Government of India has been approved. The caravan of 24 years of tireless and conscientious hard work, carried out in a relentless manner, has reached a point of transition today, he stated in a letter attached with the Twitter post on Monday night.
The officer began his civil service career with the Uttar Pradesh Police, where he served for about 10 years while the rest were in the ED, a federal probe agency that investigates money laundering and foreign exchange violation crimes.
As my professional journey of 24 years turns to a transition today, on this occasion, I express my deep seated gratitude to the Hon PM Shri @narendramodi ji, Hon HM Shri @AmitShah ji and FM Smt @nsitharaman ji, CM Shri @myogiadityanath ji, Shri S K Mishra, Director ED and Uttar Pradesh Police. I have learned a lot while working with these organizations for so many years.
I join the PM's mission to make India a Vishwa Guru, as a participant, to contribute with conviction and integrity in this process of nation-building, he said.
The officer had applied for VRS late last year.
Sources said he may contest the Uttar Pradesh polls on a BJP ticket. A B.Tech and PhD in police, human rights and social justice, Singh joined the ED in 2007 on deputation.
He was permanently absorbed into the ED cadre in 2014 and has headed some high-profile investigations into the 2G spectrum allocation case, the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the money laundering cases against former Union finance minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda, the Aircel Maxis and VVIP choppers case.
Assets worth about Rs 4,000 crore were attached in his probes.
I am deeply satisfied that despite various threats and pressure tactics from unscrupulously corrupt leaders, my courage to do my job without bowing down has been appreciated time and again by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, he stated.
The officer has had a share of controversies, including an instance in June 2018, when the Finance Ministry submitted a secret report to the Supreme Court, apparently carrying details of a phone call received by the officer from Dubai.
The report is said to have been prepared by country's external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing and handed over to the Department of Revenue in the Finance Ministry, under which the ED functions.
The then ED director Karnal Singh had issued a press statement saying the overseas call received by Rajeshwar Singh pertained to an ongoing investigation and that he was a responsible officer with outstanding career records.
The government had also launched an investigation against Rajeshwar Singh for his letter in which he had made a scathing attack on the then revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia questioning him if the latter had developed animosity against him by siding with scamsters and their affiliates ?
Rajeshwar Singh was subsequently issued a notice seeking an explanation for alleged insubordination in the context of this letter by the revenue department, to which he has replied with a regret and had explained his side of the story.
That letter, sources had said, was sent through official channels to the agency's chief Karnal Singh but it was never forwarded to Adhia.
Accusations of certain other alleged irregularities made against Singh were probed by the ED, the CBI and the Central Vigilance Commission, and a report was sent to the court and the government stating that there was no merit in the allegations and hence the inquiry was closed.
Singh, who carried out numerous encounters during his stint in the uniform, is married to IPS officer Laxmi Singh, who is currently serving as the Inspector General of Lucknow police range.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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