Kolkata: The West Bengal government Thursday night named former Kolkata Police commissioner Rajeev Kumar, currently posted as the Additional DG of state CID, as Principal Secretary in the Information, Technology and the Electronics Department.
According to an order issued by the West Bengal government, the IPS officer replaces Debasish Sen, who was holding additional charges of the department as the Additional Chief Secretary. Sen will now be the CMD of the West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (HIDCO) with additional charge of Nabadiganta Industrial Township Authority as its chairman, the order said.
Kumar, an IPS officer, was part of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) set up by the West Bengal government to investigate the Saradha chit fund scam, before the Supreme Court handed over the case to the CBI in 2014, along with other chit-fund cases.
The Saradha group of companies allegedly duped lakhs of people to the tune of Rs 2,500 crore, promising higher rates of return on their investments. The scam was unearthed in 2013 during Kumar’s tenure as Bidhannagar police commissioner.
In February, Kumar was questioned by the CBI in connection with the case for over five days in Shillong on a Supreme Court order.
After that it has been a cat and mouse game between the CBI and Kumar. There was a period when Kumar went underground for more than a month to evade arrest as the CBI issued summon after summon. The biggest probe agency failed to locate the former Kolkata top cop who did not surface till he got anticipatory bail. Since then he has not been in the limelight much.
PNN & Agencies