Centre asks Bengal govt to act against Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar for ‘sitting’ on dharna
In a letter to the Bengal chief secretary, the Union home ministry said has said that Rajeev Kumar and some other police officers sat on a dharna along with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
The political tussle between the Centre and the Bengal government may escalate further with the home ministry asking the state government to take disciplinary action against Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar.
In a letter to the Bengal chief secretary, the home ministry said has said that Rajeev Kumar and some other police officers sat on a dharna along with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee. The letter said several provisions of the All India Service Conduct Rules have been violated. The Centre, however, cannot compel the state to take action against the officer, a senior official said. (Follow live updates here)
Mamata Banerjee began a ‘Save the Constitution’ dharna on Sunday night to protest the move of the CBI to question Kolkata Police commissioner Rajeev Kumar as she accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah of plotting a ‘coup’.
CBI wants to question Rajeev Kumar over the probe into the Saradha chit fund case. Kumar headed the special investigation team (SIT) that was investigating the scams before CBI took over.
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The CBI had moved the Supreme Court seeking directions to Rajeev Kumar to cooperate with the investigation. The central probe agency had raised suspicions that the Kolkata top cop was destroying evidence in the case.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered Rajeev Kumar to cooperate with the CBI but made it clear that Kumar can’t be arrested.
Both Mamata Banerjee and the BJP claimed “moral victory” after the court ruling. Union Law Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said the Supreme Court order was “a great moral victory for the CBI”.
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The law minister’s comments followed Banerjee’s claim that the Supreme Court order vindicated her protest in support of the police officers of Bengal.
On Sunday night, a CBI team was detained by Kolkata police in an unprecedented chain of events that also witnessed chief minister Mamata Banerjee rushing to Kumar’s residence. The CBI officers were taken to Shakespeare Sarani police station and released later under instruction from Mamata Banerjee.
