After remaining at large and evading arrest for about a month, senior IPS officer and former Kolkata Commissioner of Police Rajiv Kumar on Tuesday got a major relief in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund case when Calcutta High Court granted him anticipatory bail, saying there was no need to take the top officer in custody for questioning.
He was, however, asked not to leave the city and cooperate with the Central Bureau of Investigation.
While the Congress promptly called the development a slap in the CBI’s face, the Left Front wondered whether the Tuesday’s development was the product of a last month’s meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The Division Bench of Justices Sahidullah Munshi and Subhasis Dasgupta granted the anticipatory bail to Kumar who is presently functioning as the ADG, CID on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and directed him to appear before the CBI whenever called upon to do so. He was also asked not to leave Kolkata.
There CBI is probing the role of Kumar — in tampering with the evidence to save the influential people — as the chief of Special Investigating Team constituted by the State Government in 2013 to investigate the chit fund case.
The Alipore Court on Saturday had rejected his anticipatory bail, prompting Kumar who is still at large to move Calcutta High Court.
While the CBI officials would not comment on the issue, sources inside the Agency said they were preferring an appeal in the Supreme Court.
Kumar’s case hit national headlines after Mamata Banerjee rushed to his house and later sat on a two-day dharna in the company of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu protesting alleged Central bid to arm-twist the States by victimising their officers when the CBI raided his bungalow a few months ago.