Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Thursday fixed for February 13 the hearing of a plea by Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar seeking that he should be allowed to appear before the CBI at his convenience in connection with the agency’s probe into Saradha chit fund scam.
The date for the hearing of the petition was decided by Justice Shivakant Prashad. This will be second hearing of his plea by the high court.
On February 5, the Supreme Court had directed the 1989-batch IPS officer to appear before the CBI in connection with the scam.
A bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, however, had said that no coercive step should be taken against Kumar who will now appear before the probe agency in Shillong in Meghalaya.
The Supreme Court, which posted for further hearing the matter to February 20, also issued a contempt notice to the West Bengal chief secretary, the DGP and Kumar on CBI’s plea that its team was detained when it went to question Kumar on Sunday.
The top court’s directive came against the backdrop of a dharna launched by the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata in protest against CBI’s move.
Kumar has been serving as the Kolkata’s police commissioner since January 2016. He has reportedly not responded to summons from the CBI in connection with the probes into the Rose Valley and Saradha ponzi scams.
He had led the SIT investigation into the scams until 2014 when the agency took over following directions from the apex court. The CBI was slated to question Kumar about documents that reportedly went missing.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]