CRPF Havildar Turned Sadhu Returns to Duty After 27-Year Legal Battle
After nearly 27 years away from the force, Girvar Singh Tomar has returned to the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), resuming duty at the age of 54 after a long legal battle that began with his dismissal in 1999 and ended with a court order directing his reinstatement. Tomar, a native of Chhichhawali village in Madhya Pradesh’s Morena district, has now joined the CRPF’s 85th Battalion in Bijapur, Chhattisgarh, bringing to a close one of the most unusual service disputes in recent memory.
Tomar’s return was as symbolic as it was procedural. On the night of August 25, he boarded a train from Morena for his new posting. By the next morning in Bijapur, he had already begun shedding the outward signs of the life he had lived for years outside the force. A barber cut away the long hair and white beard he had kept as a sadhu, and by afternoon the mustard-coloured robes of his spiritual life had given way to the CRPF’s khaki uniform, cap and polished boots.
“It is all by the grace of God. It feels as if I have returned home,” Tomar said after rejoining the force.
His case stretches back to his early years in the CRPF. Tomar joined the force in 1991 and served for around eight years before his career was cut short on October 21, 1999, following a departmental inquiry linked to a dispute involving a senior officer. Court records identify him as Constable Driver Girwar Singh Tomar, force number 913126828, and note that he was charge-sheeted in July 1999. His departmental appeal and later revision were both rejected in 2000.
Tomar has consistently maintained that the allegation at the heart of the case was false. According to him, he was accused of having his bicycle strike the officer’s vehicle, a claim he denied. He said his decision to contest the allegation only worsened his position. “I contested the allegation that my bicycle hit his vehicle. That made the situation worse,” he recalled.
What followed was a legal fight that moved from departmental appeals to the Allahabad High Court. In 2007, a single judge of the court gave Tomar important relief, holding on April 10 that even if the allegations were accepted, dismissal was too severe a penalty for the alleged misconduct. But that did not bring him back to the force. The Union of India and the CRPF challenged the ruling through a special appeal and obtained a stay, leaving the matter unresolved for years.
While the case remained pending, Tomar’s life took an entirely different turn. After returning to Morena, he joined the Nirmohi Akhara around 2001 and embraced the life of a sadhu. Over time, he came to be known as Baba Girvar Das and later as Girvardas Maharaj. He first spent time at the Barahdwari temple near his village and later lived for around two decades at Morena’s Gufa Mandir.
Even as he devoted himself to prayer and temple duties, he did not abandon the fight to reclaim his service. Tomar continued to travel for court hearings whenever required, moving between his spiritual responsibilities and the long-running effort to get his uniform back. Through those years, he remained connected to his family as well. He is the son of Damodar Singh Tomar, and his wife, Manju Devi, along with their four children, remained part of the household he supported. His daughters Shivani and Radha are married. One son, Abhishek, serves in the Indian Air Force, while his other son is Krishna.
The turning point came in August 2025, when a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court disposed of the Union government’s appeal and directed that Tomar be taken back into service within three months. Even then, implementation was not immediate. The CRPF reportedly struggled to retrieve records related to a case that was more than two decades old, and further notices followed while Tomar waited for the order to be carried out.
That wait ended only nearly a year later. Around August 26, 2026, the CRPF issued orders for Tomar’s rejoining and posted him with the 85th Battalion in Bijapur. The reinstatement brought him back into a force that had changed greatly since 1999. Most of the personnel he had once served with have since retired or moved on, and Tomar said only one or two from his earlier period remained in service. Even so, he said his new colleagues had received him warmly. “Only one or two people from my time remain, but colleagues here are so welcoming and caring, it is as if I never left,” he said.
Tomar’s return to uniform does not, however, mean he has put the entire matter behind him. He has said that he intends to pursue the promotions and related service benefits he believes he would have received had his career not been interrupted by the dismissal. For now, though, the most immediate change is the one visible on his shoulders and boots: the mustard robes of Baba Girvar Das have been replaced once again by CRPF khaki.
For Tomar, the journey from a dismissed constable to a reinstated CRPF driver has involved petitions, appeals, stays, temple duties and years of uncertainty. It is a rare case in which a government servant spent much of the intervening period living as a sadhu while continuing to fight in court for the right to return to the same force he had joined in 1991.
