Chandigarh, April 11
In a significant development, the Punjab Government ordered the shifting of the Chief Director of Vigilance, Mr S.V. Singh, who was promoted Director-General of Police and posted in Vigilance only last month.

He has been now posted as Director-General-cum-Commandant General, Punjab Home Guards and Civil Defence. No one has been posted in his place in the Vigilance Bureau.

Informed sources reveal that the shifting of Mr S.V. Singh has cleared the decks for bringing back Dr A.A. Siddiqui, at present working as the Director-General of Police, Manipur. Dr Siddiqui is keen to return to Punjab.The Punjab Government has already moved for recalling him from inter-state deputation.

Dr Siddiqui is considered close to both the general secretary of the All-India Congress Committee, Mr Ahmed Patel, and the Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh.

Another reason being given is differences among top officials of the bureau because of which its functioning was getting impaired.

The sources also reveal that after the first major administrative reshuffle in the Police Department, the important position of Additional Director-General of Police, Administration, had been lying vacant after the previous incumbent, Mr N.P.S. Aulakh, was shifted.

The Punjab Government today shifted the ADGP-cum-Commandant General, Home Guards and Civil Defence, Mr R.S. Chalia, as ADGP, Administration.

Though the shifting may have nothing to do with the handling of PPSC Chairman Ravi Sidhu’s case by the Vigilance Bureau, many an eyebrow has been raised over the developments during the past 48 hours. Only yesterday, Mr Harbhajan Singh, Superintendent of Police, who was supervising the PPSC Chairman’s case, was shifted and posted as Assistant Commandant of 13th Battalion of the Punjab Armed Police here. His place has been taken by Mr Jaskaran Singh, who was already in the Vigilance Bureau but handling the Economic Offences Wing.

It was not only the Vigilance Bureau which initially worked on the corruption case against the PPSC Chairman as an important role was also reportedly played by another wing of the department.

The two top-level transfers were ordered hours before the Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, Mr S.K. Sinha, who is also the administrative Secretary for Home, left for Guwahati with the Chief Minister for the Congress Chief Ministers' conclave there.