Allahabad High Court Tasks CBI With Tracing Army Sepoy Rajat Singh, Missing Since 2018

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 court described the inquiry as “one last attempt” before it considers how to proceed with a habeas corpus petition that has remained pending for more than seven years.

A Division Bench of Justice Atul Sreedharan and Justice Achal Sachdev issued the direction on November 4, 2026, after noting that years of investigations and court hearings had produced no concrete information about the soldier’s whereabouts. The Bench asked the CBI to locate Singh, if possible, and bring him before the court. If it cannot find him, the agency must report on the steps taken during its inquiry so the court can consider any further orders.

The soldier’s disappearance

Singh was serving with the 28 Punjab Regiment at Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand, when 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 been unknown since.

His father, Updesh Singh, who lives in Damowal village in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur district, has spent years seeking answers about his son’s disappearance.

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 help 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 had gone.

With no significant progress, Updesh Singh wrote to the then Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, Govind Mathur, seeking judicial intervention. The court treated the 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.

Years of court proceedings

The case received an unusual hearing on October 2, 2019, when a Division Bench of then Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Vivek Varma sat on Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday. The court directed the Command Officer of the Military Police at Bareilly Cantonment to provide all necessary details concerning the missing sepoy.

Several hearings followed, along with repeated directions to Uttar Pradesh Police authorities, including the Senior Superintendent of Police, Bareilly. The investigation nevertheless remained inconclusive.

In its November 4, 2026, order, the High Court expressed concern that the soldier had not been traced despite the passage of years. The Bench observed that “much water has flowed” since the case began, but that numerous hearings had yielded no concrete outcome. It also noted that the state police had been unable to make a breakthrough in locating Singh.

The judges said the petition’s origins warranted one final investigative effort, stating: “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 court consequently asked the CBI to inquire into the disappearance and attempt to locate the soldier. Its report, if Singh cannot be found, is to set out the steps taken in the inquiry and will inform the High Court’s consideration of what should happen next with the petition.

The case concerns the disappearance of a serving Army soldier from a military establishment and has raised questions about the circumstances of his alleged deputation, the investigation that followed and the accountability of the authorities involved. For his family, the CBI inquiry offers another opportunity to establish what happened. The court has said it wants this final investigative effort before deciding the future course of the long-pending case.