The Supreme Court Friday issued notice to IPS officer and former Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar on a petition filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) challenging the anticipatory bail granted to him in the Saradha chit fund scam case. During the hearing, the bench headed by Chief Justice of India S A Bobde told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta the CBI needed to convince the court as to why Kumar's custody was necessary in the case. To this, the central agency claimed Kumar had suppressed materials he had collected while investigating the case as part of the Special Investigation Team (SIT). It also claimed Kumar was absconding for quite some time. On October 4, the CBI had filed an appeal in the apex court against the October 1 order of the Kolkata High Court granting him relief. The High Court had held that it was not an appropriate case for custodial interrogation. The Saradha group of companies allegedly duped lakhs of people of around Rs 2,500 crore, promising higher rates of return on their investments. Kumar was part of the SIT set up by the West Bengal government to probe the scam before the top court handed it to the CBI in 2014, along with other chit fund cases. The scam broke in 2013 during Kumar’s tenure as the Bidhannagar Police Commissioner. In 2016, just before the Assembly elections, Kumar, a close aide of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, was elevated to Kolkata Police Commissioner.
