Vigilance dept clean chit to IPS officer

Lucknow: Vigilance establishment has given a clean chit to IPS Himanshu Kumar in a case lodged for allegedly lobbying for a favourable posting. The FIR was registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act in the Meerut sector of the Vigilance establishment in September 2020.Kumar, a 2010 batch officer, is posted as commandant PAC Moradabad battalion and got additional charge in the Prisons department. Earlier, the ‘whistleblower’ IPS officer Vaibhav Krishna, who was then posted as SSP GB Nagar, had filed a complaint of graft against five IPS officers—Ajay Pal Sharma, Sudhir Kumar Singh, Ganesh Saha, Rajiv Narain Mishra and Himanshu Kumar and marked it to the department of home and to then UP DGP on August 23, 2019. SIT was constituted on January 9, 2020, on the directions of the chief minister. It comprised the interim state police chief H C Awasthy, who was then heading the vigilance department along with then IG STF Amitabh Yash, and then Jal Nigam MD Vikas Gothalwal.The SIT had sent a report to the government recommending a probe against Himanshu Kumar and Ajay Pal Sharma.