The drama unfolding in West Bengal has taken an interesting turn, this time in the Supreme Court. The CBI on February 4 moved Supreme Court against the West Bengal government’s non-cooperation with investigations in the Saradha Chit Fund case. A CBI team had previously landed up at Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar’s bungalow alleging that he had destroyed evidence in the case to protect himself and his political masters. However, the Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said that the SC did not find anything in their application about the destruction of evidence! The CBI’s application will now be heard on Tuesday February 5.
The BJP has had its eye on the state for a very long time and hopes to form a government there in a bid to consolidate its influence in the East. But they failed to fully predict or gauge the nature of a possible counter move by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Sending the CBI on an audacious mission to arrest the Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar for allegedly destroying evidence in the Saradha Chit Fund Scam and the Rose Valley Ponzi Scheme was nothing more than a power move designed to establish dominance. Commissioner Kumar was heading a Special Investigation Team into the cases and some documents relating to the cases had allegedly gone missing. BJP leader Prakash Jawadekar also spoke about a mysterious red diary and a pen drive that hold the key to the case.
The CBI then summoned him for questioning several times over a period of two years, but Kumar allegedly ignored these summons. Therefore on February 3, a CBI landed up at his bungalow to question him but were prevented from entering the premises. In fact, the Kolkata Police then detained the CBI officials at a local police station, but released them later.
Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee has gone on a sit-in strike against the Modi government calling the move “political vendetta”. In a tweet Banerjee said, “The highest levels of the BJP leadership are doing the worst kind of political vendetta. Not only are political parties their targets, they are misusing power to take control of the police and destroy all institutions. We condemn this.” She has also stood by the Commissioner and rubbished claims of his disappearance. Her strike entered its second day on Monday.