Senior Indian Police Service officer and former Director General of Tihar Prisons Sandeep Goel was on Wednesday suspended by the Union Home Ministry for alleged dereliction of duty, reported PTI.
Goel, a 1989-batch IPS officer, was removed as the head of Delhi’s Tihar Prisons on November 3 and sent to the Delhi Police headquarters. He was, however, not given any posting, reported the Hindustan Times.
The ministry did not mention why Goel was suspended but the order came after conman Sukesh Chandrasekhar claimed that he had paid Rs 12.5 crore to the officer as “protection money” for his safety in Mandoli jail. Chandrasekhar is lodged in the prison in connection with a money laundering case.
Goel, however, had claimed that Chandrashekhar made the allegations because he had acted sternly against the prisoner.
In a letter to Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on October 7, Chandrasekhar had also claimed that he paid Rs 10 crore to Aam Aadmi Party leader Satyender Jain as “protection money”. Jain has been in prison since he was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on May 30 in a money laundering case.
Saxena had appointed a three member committee to look into allegations that Jain was being given special treatment in Tihar jail. The committee had said that it found a CCTV footage that showed Goel visiting Jain in his cell on October 6 and talking to him for at least 50 minutes after the lock-up time for prisoners.
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