Former Kolkata Top Cop Rajeev Kumar Deposes Before CBI in Saradha Chit Fund Scam Case

Kolkata: Former Commissioner of Police, Kolkata, Rajeev Kumar on Friday appeared before the CBI court for a hearing in the Saradha chit fund scam case.

Kumar reached the CGO Complex at DF Block in Kolkata’s Salt Lake City around 10.30 AM in the ongoing probe into the Ponzi scam.

The CBI had earlier demanded custodial interrogation of Kumar before the Supreme Court (SC), serving him several notices for allegedly suppressing facts in the Saradha scam case.

On May 30, in a major relief to Kumar, the Calcutta High Court granted him conditional protection from arrest for a month. The CBI cannot thus arrest him till June 30 but he will be available for examination if required by CBI sleuths. The next hearing in this matter will be on June 12.

On May 21, the Supreme Court rejected Kumar’s petition for a special bench to hear his request to extend the seven-day protection against arrest in the case.

Kumar had earlier filed the petition due to lawyers strike in Kolkata since the first week of this month and Election Commission’s refusal to allow him leave for more than two days.

Earlier, on May 17, a three-judge bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi had withdrawn the arrest protection order that he had been accorded on February 5.

Prior to this, Kumar had been removed from the post of ADG CID in West Bengal by Election Commission and transferred to the Union Home Ministry in Delhi.

The poll body move had for the first time invoked Article 324 to remove Rajeev Kumar and West Bengal’s Principal Secretary (Home) Atri Bhattacharya as they also curtailed campaigning in the state.

Kumar is a 1989 batch IPS officer of West Bengal and had earlier worked as Commissioner of Police, Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate and as Special Task Force (STF) chief under the Kolkata Police.

He was also one of the members of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed to investigate the Saradha and Rose Valley chit fund scams that had surfaced in 2013.

Kumar recently hits the headlines for having a standoff with the CBI after the central agency officers went to his Loudon Street residence in South Kolkata for "secret operation".

According to the CBI, Kumar needs to be questioned regarding missing documents and files in chit fund scams.