Patna, April 8: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has sought details from Gaya police on the 2005 murder of former Gaya MP Rajesh Kumar, the case gaining political significance after the name of Speaker Uday Narayan Choudhary came up during the probe.

Rajesh Kumar, along with four others, including his close aide Ghulam Sarwar Mirani, bodyguard and driver, was shot dead during while campaigning for the Assembly elections near Madar village under the jurisdiction of Dumaria police station in Gaya district on January 22, 2005.

Kumar was then contesting the Assembly polls as a Lok Janshakti Party candidate from Imamganj reserved constituency in Gaya district. It is the same constituency Speaker Choudhary has been representing in the Assembly and he was a political rival of Kumar in that election also.

Choudhary has vehemently denied any role in the murder and said that he has been dragged into the controversy out of political vendetta.

Sources said the CBI superintendent of police, Patna, wrote a letter to Gaya senior superintendent of police (SSP) P. Kannan last week, asking him to provide all the relevant documents pertaining to the former MP's murder case (No. 01/05) lodged with the Dumaria police station, around 170km south of Patna.

The CBI has also sought to know about the present status of the case. Sources said the Gaya police have been directed to furnish details about the case at the earliest so that a final decision about taking over the investigation can be taken.

The state government, headed by then chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, had sent a recommendation for a CBI probe into the case in February this year.

"Yes, we have received a request letter from the CBI, Patna, to submit papers of the case related to the murder of former MP Rajesh Kumar. I have directed the Gaya City SP, Rakesh Kumar, to furnish all the details to the probe agency," Kannan told The Telegraph. He clarified that he had not received any communication or directive from the state government on the matter.

Gaya City SP Rakesh Kumar said he would send the relevant information to the CBI in a couple of days. "I will submit documents to the agency in a day or two," he said.

Choudhary's name cropped up when the case was reinvestigated by then Gaya SP Paresh Saxena in 2008. A Maoist leader Krishna Murari Yadav was arrested and sent to jail in the case but the family members of the slain Rajesh Kumar had petitioned the police demanding a re-investigation.

Based on the information and evidence collected during course of the re-investigation, Saxena prepared a detailed report in which he mentioned that Choudhary should be quizzed in this case.

The SP had also clearly mentioned that it was not a murder case in which Maoists were involved, rather it had a political angle.

Saxena, in his report, had expressed displeasure over the way the case had been handled initially.

Saxena's report was approved by then deputy inspector-general (Magadh range) Arvind Pandey. Both the SP and the DIG were immediately shifted from Gaya. Pandey is at present posted as additional director-general (weaker sections) in the Criminal Investigation Department while Saxena is the additional secretary, home.

The then DIG Pandey had ordered the investigating officer and the then Sherghat sub-divisional police officer to interrogate Krishna Murari Yadav and his alleged aide Uddan Kahar---but the two were released on bail within two weeks of their arrest. Yadav was later appointed personal secretary to Choudhary, who was made Speaker after he won elections in November 2005.

Union minister and LJP leader Ram Vilas Paswan has been demanding a CBI probe into the case from the very beginning. He had claimed that Choudhary's name figured in the case diary.