Kolkata police-CBI face-off MHA to examine role of IPS officers

The Union Home Ministry will examine the role of some IPS officers in the alleged obstruction put up against a CBI team probing the Saradha ponzi scam in Kolkata and whether they violated the service conduct rules while preventing questioning of city police commissioner Rajeev Kumar, officials said on Monday.
The Union home ministry is the cadre-controlling authority of the Indian Police Service (IPS) officers in the country.
According to a ministry official, the MHA will seek report on the role of IPS officers who allegedly obstructed the CBI probe and whether they violated the service conduct rules in Sunday’s episode in Kolkata.
The Centre on Sunday evening received information that CBI officers in Kolkata had experienced “intimidation and threat to personal safety in course of investigation into the Saradha scam being conducted under the directions of the Supreme Court.”
Reports were also received that the residence of a joint director of the CBI was surrounded by the Kolkata police, the ministry official said.
Another official said, according to reports received by the home ministry, the CBI team was allegedly obstructed by the state police when they went to grill the Kolkata police chief in connection with the Saradha scam case.
The ministry has deployed central forces at the CBI office and residential premises of the probe agency officials in the state and it is now “closely monitoring the situation”.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh has already spoken to West Bengal Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi and took stock of the “unprecedented” situation that arose in Kolkata on Sunday, the official said.
According to the CBI, IPS officer Rajeev Kumar, who led a Special Investigation Team of the West Bengal Police probing the ponzi scams, needs to be questioned regarding missing documents and files but he has not responded to notices to appear before the agency.
Kumar, a 1989-batch IPS officer of West Bengal cadre, did not even attend a meeting with Election Commission officials who had gone to Kolkata to review election preparedness.
In an unprecedented development, a number of CBI officers, who had gone to question Rajeev Kumar in connection with chit fund scam cases, were bundled into police jeeps, whisked to a police station and briefly detained on Sunday.
Hours after the incident, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee began a sit-in right in front of the Metro Cinema to protest “insults” she faced at the hands of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah and claimed the CBI knocked on the doors of Kumar without a search warrant.