After the Kolkata High Court on 1 October 2019 granted bail to former Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar in the Saradha chit fund scam case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has moved the Supreme Court seeking to interrogate Kumar.
CBI’s petition in the apex court alleges that the senior IPS officer has not been cooperating with the ongoing investigation, and has been evasive about providing information.
Kumar’s bail was granted on the condition that he would cooperate with the inquiry.
He was a key member of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the West Bengal government for investigating the chit fund scam, before the Supreme Court in 2014 handed over the case to the CBI, along with a host of other cases.
However, the CBI had petitioned SC immediately after Kumar was granted bail on 1 October, and the SC also issued a notice to him on 29 November. The matter remained pending ever since.
What is CBI Saying
CBI claims his custodial interrogation is important to uncover the greater conspiracy in the case between Saradha directors Sudipta Sen, Debajani Mukherjee and several top Trinamool Congress (TMC) politicians, to finally bring the probe to a rounded conclusion.
CBI also alleges that Kumar participated in destruction of evidence by tampering with phone records to protect top TMC politicians and directors of the Saradha chit funds, Times Now reported.
Citing an example of Rajeev Kumar “saving the high and mighty”, CBI had earlier informed the apex court that Sudipta Sen, who is the main accused, had during interrogation named former TMC MPs Kunal Ghosh and Srinjoy Bose, senior lawyer Nalini Chidambaram, former Union minister Matang Sinh and his wife Manoranjan Sinh, and businessman Shantanu Ghosh for allegedly building a nexus in the chit fund cases. But Kumar allegedly proceeded only against Ghosh, sparing everyone else.
The Saradha company allegedly defrauded lakhs of people while running several Ponzi schemes in West Bengal. Thousands of crores of rupees were lost after the collapse of their scheme in 2013. Sudipta Sen, their promoter, was arrested the same year.
(with inputs from PTI and Times Now)
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