Bihar DGP Gupteshwar Pandey of Sushant Singh Rajput case takes voluntary retirement from service

Bihar DGP Gupteshwar Pandey, who recently made headlines due to his involvement in the Sushant Singh Rajput case, took voluntary retirement from service on Tuesday evening. September 22 was the last working day for the 1987-batch IPS officer. State Governor Phagu Chauhan has reportedly accepted his resignation. Pandey confirmed the development saying he has taken VRS and that it was his constitutional right to do so. 

"For the past two months I was being hounded and my life was becoming miserable. I would get thousands of phone calls asking me about my retirement. I was fed up,” he said. A notification in this regard was also issued by the home department. 

He was due to retire in February next year. Following the VRS of DGP, Director general of Homeguard and Fire services, Sanjiv Kumar Singhal has been given additional charge as the DGP. 

Meanwhile, Pandey in all probability will contest the forthcoming assembly polls. Bihar is set to host elections later this year.  

Gupteshwar Pandey has been in the news recently. He has made it to the headlines and is a talking point on social media in connection with the Sushant Singh Rajput case. Pandey was openly critical of Mumbai Police in the late actor's death case. He had also sparked a controversy when he said that actor Rhea Chakraborty didn’t have the “stature” to comment on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. 

Pandey was born in 1961 in Geruabandh village in Buxar district of Bihar. Pandey graduated from Patna University in Sanskrit and even took his UPSC exam in Sanskrit. He cleared the UPSC in his first attempt and went on to become an Income Tax officer. In his second attempt, he cleared the IPS. 

Pandey served as the SP of several Naxal-affected districts like Aurangabad, Jehanabad, Arwal, Begusarai and Nalanda, besides being DIG of Munger and Muzaffarpur zone.