Bengal IPS officer Rajeev Kumar appears in court after going ‘missing’ for 20 days

Former Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar presenting himself at the CBI office in Kolkata for interrogation, in August.

Twenty days after last being seen in public, senior IPS (Indian Police Service) officer Rajeev Kumar appeared before the Alipore Court in Kolkata on October 3 to complete the formalities for his anticipatory bail, granted by the Calcutta High Court on October 1. Rajeev Kumar, who is now posted as the Additional Director General of Police (CID), has repeatedly been summoned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the multi-crore fund collection scam by the Saradha group. He had been apparently untraceable to CBI investigators since September 13 when a single bench of the Calcutta High Court withdrew the interim protection from arrest it had given him earlier.

The Division Bench of the High Court comprising Justices Sahidullah Munshi and Subhasis Dasgupta, which had granted him anticipatory bail on October 1, said that custodial interrogation as sought by the CBI was not required in Rajeev Kumar’s case as he had “rendered his cooperation substantially in the interest of investigation”. Rajeev Kumar had been interrogated by the CBI on two occasions earlier this year. The CBI, on the other hand, maintained that he was not cooperating with the agency and also accused him of suppression of evidence.

“The Hon’ble High Court has granted interim bail to Rajeev Kumar. In that respect he surrendered before the ACJM (Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate) court. The court granted him bail and he furnished sureties of Rs.50,000 (each) as directed,” said Rajeev Kumar’s lawyer. Until Rajeev Kumar showed up in court on October 3, the CBI had spent nearly three futile weeks searching for him in various parts of Kolkata, including his home, hotels, and even hospitals.

Rajeev Kumar’s run-in with the CBI became a major political issue in the State when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sat in a dharna on February 3 when the CBI went knocking on Rajeev Kumar’s door apparently to question him. She accused the BJP government at the Centre of using Central agencies as weapons against the opposition. “Every time there is an election, they use the pretext of chit fund scams and just do whatever they want,” she had said.

The main allegation against Rajeev Kumar is that he suppressed and destroyed key evidence in the investigation of the Saradha scam while heading the Special Investigating Team (SIT) set up by the State government to probe the crime. Subsequently, the case was handed over to the CBI by the Supreme Court. The Saradha scam, which broke out in 2013 and in which lakhs of investors from poorer sections of society were ruined, dealt a serious blow to the image of the ruling Trinamool Congress. Several of its top leaders were put behind bars in connection with the scam.