No Arrest For Kolkata Police Chief, Must Cooperate With CBI: Top Court
Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar cannot be arrested but he has to appear before the CBI in Shillong, make available all evidence and cooperate with investigations into chit fund scams in Bengal, the Supreme Court said today as the CBI accused the officer of “doctoring evidence” and shielding the accused.
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called the Supreme Court order a “victory of democracy”.
The Kolkata police chief is at the heart of a huge showdown between the CBI and Mamata Banerjee, who is on Day 3 of her indefinite protest sit-in provoked by a CBI team door-stepping Rajeev Kumar on Sunday evening to question him on “missing evidence” in the Saradha and Rose Valley chit fund cases. Several members of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress have been arrested in the cases, which were probed by a Special Investigation Team led by Rajeev Kumar.
The CBI told the Supreme Court that Rajeev Kumar’s investigation “shielded guilty companies” and there was “inaction, selective action and a nexus” between the police and the accused companies. The evidence handed over by the team “is not complete and it was doctored”, the CBI added in its affidavit listing allegations against the Kolkata police chief.
