The Allahabad High Court has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to make a final effort to trace Indian Army Sepoy Rajat Singh, who has been missing since July 28, 2018. The inquiry is intended to inform the court’s next steps in a habeas corpus petition pending for more than seven years.
Disappearance and initial investigation
Sepoy Rajat Singh was serving with the 28 Punjab Regiment at Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand. He was allegedly deputed to Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, by Colonel (Retired) A.K. Dubey; the deputation was alleged to have been irregular. Singh was last seen on July 28, 2018, at the Headquarters, Uttar Bharat Area, Officers’ Mess in Bareilly. His whereabouts have not been established.
His father, Updesh Singh, from Damowal village in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur district, has pursued the case for years. An FIR was registered at Bareilly Cantonment Police Station on July 30, 2019, under Section 364 of the Indian Penal Code, which concerns kidnapping or abduction in order to murder.
During the investigation, the investigating officer reportedly sought assistance from the Military Police in Bareilly and asked for Lance Naik Balwant Singh to be made available for questioning. The request allegedly received no response, and investigators did not establish where Rajat Singh was.
High Court proceedings
After the investigation made no significant progress, Updesh Singh wrote to the then Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, Govind Mathur, seeking judicial intervention. The court treated his letter as a suo motu habeas corpus petition. It was registered as Habeas Corpus Writ Petition No. 919 of 2019, titled In Re Missing Sep Rajat Singh S/o Updesh Singh.
On October 2, 2019, a Division Bench comprising then Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Vivek Varma held a special sitting to hear the matter, despite Gandhi Jayanti being a national holiday. The court directed the Command Officer of the Military Police at Bareilly Cantonment to provide details concerning the missing sepoy.
In the years that followed, the High Court issued further directions to Uttar Pradesh Police authorities, including the Senior Superintendent of Police, Bareilly. The investigation remained inconclusive.
CBI asked to make a final effort
In an order dated November 4, 2026, a Division Bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Achal Sachdev noted that repeated hearings and investigations had yielded no concrete information. The judges observed that “much water has flowed” since the case began and that the state police had not achieved a breakthrough in locating Singh.
The Bench said: “As this matter was initiated suo motu based on a letter written by the father of the corpus, and that too by the then Chief Justice of this Court, this Court considers it necessary to give one last attempt before finally disposing of this petition.”
The High Court requested the CBI to inquire into Singh’s disappearance and try to locate him. It asked the agency to produce him before the court if it can trace him. If it cannot, the CBI must submit a report detailing the steps taken in its inquiry, so the court can consider what further orders may be necessary.
Case remains unresolved
The CBI inquiry is the latest development in a case concerning the disappearance of a serving Army soldier from a military establishment. The circumstances of the alleged deputation and the course of the investigation have also been part of the concerns surrounding the case.
For Updesh Singh and his family, the inquiry presents another opportunity to establish what happened to Rajat Singh. The High Court has called for this investigative effort before deciding the future course of the long-pending petition; the case now awaits the CBI’s action and findings.
