An FIR has been lodged against former cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh, senior IAS officer Navneet Sehgal and two others for allegedly threatening a litigant in the Taj corridor case. "The FIR was lodged with the Hazratganj police station against former cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh, Navneet Sehgal, founder of Amity University Ashok Chauhan and former MLA Ajay Pratap Singh alias Lalla Bhaiya on a complaint filed by Anupama Singh," said an officer.
Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh, considered close to outgoing Chief Minister Mayawati, on Tuesday took premature retirement from service with effect from March 9, official sources said in Lucknow.
Questioning the appointment of Shashank Shekhar Singh, who is not an IAS officer, as Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Secretary, the Supreme Court on Monday said there have to be rules and regulations for such crucial postings.
The Enforcement Directorate will now, along with the Uttar Pradesh police' Economic Offences Wing, investigate the Rs 500-crore fraud alleged to have been played by Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh.
Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh on Monday refuted certain claims made by WikiLeaks with respect to his conversation with former United States Charge d'Affairs Peter Burleigh.
The case lodged against Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh and others for alleged financial fraud amounting to Rs 500 crore would be handed over to Kolkata police for further investigation, the Uttar Pradesh government said on Saturday.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Wednesday vehemently refuted Union Home Minister P Chidambaram's claim that the Centre had forewarned the Uttar Pradesh government against a possible terrorist strike in Varanasi.
Holding s strong brief for her Rural Development Minister Daddu Prasad, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Thursday dismissed the accusation of rape against him as "false and baseless."
The success story written by Nitish Kumar in Bihar has not gone unnoticed in the neighbouring Uttar Pradesh where his counterpart chief minister Mayawati appears to be getting serious about governance.
Undaunted by the National Human Rights Commission notice over the alleged excesses on opposition leaders staging anti-Mayaati demonstrations in Uttar Pradesh, the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party dispensation is all set for a showdown with the Samajwadi Party, that has called for a statewide demonstration on March 17.
While lambasting the Union government for not paying heed to the state's requirement of Central para-military forces, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati said in Lucknow late on Wednesday evening that the Centre alone would be responsible for any violence that might spark off as a fallout to the much-awaited verdict in the long pending Ayodhya case on Thursday afternoon.
Faced with protests, Uttar Pradesh government has offered the farmers of Agra district an enhanced compensation package for the land acquired from them for the Yamuna Expressway project.
Provoked by the scathing criticism from different quarters on her refusal to implement the Right to Education Act in the country's most populous and poorly literate state, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati on Monday suddenly seemed to rise to the occasion by claiming that she never meant to oppose education.
The Uttar Pradesh police on Friday claimed to have cracked the murder case of Lucknow Chief Medical Officer (family welfare) Dr B P Singh, who was gunned down outside his residence in Lucknow's posh Indira Nagar, while stepping out for his routine morning walk on April 2.
With a view to containing the crisis arising due to the on-going farmers' agitation in western Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Mayawati on Friday chalked out a new farmer-friendly course.
The farmers were demanding higher compensation, equivalent to the one given to peasants in Noida, against acquisition of their land for the development of the township.
Faced with protests by farmers demanding higher compensation for land acquired for a township along the Taj Expressway, the Mayawati government on Tuesday decided to hike the price offered to them by 20 per cent at Rs 570 per square metre. A team of top state officials led by state cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh and some senior ministers of the Mayawati government held parleys with farmer leader Ram Babu Kateria at the Aligarh airstrip in the early hours of Tuesday.
The Mayawati-led Uttar Pradesh Cabinet decided to refer the 1,200-acre SEZ proposal to New Delhi as it violated the contiguity norms laid down by it.
Training her guns on the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati was extremely critical of President Pratibha Patil's address to the joint sitting of parliament in New Delhi on Thursday.
"Media reports stating that the Chief Minister owned bungalow in Badalpur village in Gauttam Buddha Nagar are baseless and far from truth. She does not own even a single inch of land or any type of property in the village," Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh told media persons in Lucknow.
In an obvious reference to the allegations made by UP Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi who had earlier in the day charged the UP chief minister of amassing huge amounts of wealth and property, UP Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh told a press conference in Lucknow on Tuesday, "The UP chief minister does not own an inch of land anywhere."
Former minister in the Bahujan Samaj Party government in Uttar Pradesh Babu Singh Kushwaha has alleged that he is being trapped into the National Rural Health Mission scam as a part of a conspiracy hatched by senior bureaucrats.
In a significant move, Uttar Pradesh's most powerful bureaucrat Shashank Shekhar Singh relinquished his power on Saturday.
Top Uttar Pradesh bureaucrat Shashank Shekhar Singh, who was sent by Chief Minister Mayawati to Aligarh, has managed to defuse the crisis that erupted there after three agitating farmers were killed in firing by policemen on August 15. The farmers were protesting against the inadequate compensation for agricultural land acquired to build the high-speed Yamuna Expressway between Noida and Agra.
'That the commandments to officialdom were issued by a BJP functionary and not a minister is a reflection of the Yogi government's work style.'