Did the Mamata Banerjee government appoint Rajeev Kumar as the acting director-general of police knowing fully well that he might have to be removed from office by January 31 within a month of his appointment?
A month-old letter from the Election Commission of India, sent to chief secretaries of all states, suggests that the Mamata Banerjee government of Bengal went ahead with the ad hoc appointment of Kumar last month with the express knowledge that he would have to be removed before January 31, 2024 as directed by Nirvachan Sadan in the letter dated December 21, 2023.
The EC letter is regarding transfer and posting of officers ahead of the 2024 general elections and polls pertaining to state assemblies of Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha and Sikkim.
The sub-section five of section 6 (categories of officers not covered under transfer policy) states, “the commission further desires that no officer/official against whom a criminal case related to official functioning is pending in any court of law, be associated with/deployed on election related duty.”
The deadline for completing the process and submission of compliance reports by the state chief secretary and DGP--- in the case of Bengal, Kumar’s own office will have to comply--- has been set as January 31, 2024.
The question remains why the Mamata Banerjee government rushed to appoint Kumar in the first place when it knows that he is facing a criminal case in the Saradha chit fund scam being investigated by the CBI no less.
“The appointment was a personal achievement for him. Even if he has to go now the blame will be on the EC's door. Whether he will be reinstated after the elections will most likely depend on the outcome (of the Lok Sabha polls)," said a senior government officer.
The rule-book says that before the appointment of DGP the state has to send a list with details of all officers of director-general rank to the UPSC, which selects three names and sends them to the state. The state is then free to choose any one officer from the list of three.
Apart from the CBI probe against Kumar in the Saradha scam there is no other reason why he will not get to be the DGP.
Only two others are senior to Kumar -- Vivek Sahai and Zulfiquar Hasan, both 1988 batch officers. Sahai is currently director-general of police (Home Guards) while Hasan is on central deputation to the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security.
“Before the DGP is appointed the vigilance department and the ministry of personnel have to verify if a case is pending against the incumbent. We suspect the state government and the Centre have hushed up the matter (Saradha scam probe). Otherwise how could a person against whom CBI had issued a lookout notice be given charge of DGP?” asked Mohammad Salim, CPM state secretary. “We will lodge a complaint to the central poll panel as soon as the elections are announced and the model code of conduct comes into effect," he said.
CPM Rajya Sabha MP and lawyer Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, who had fought the case for the Saradha chit fund victims, said, “The case against him (Kumar) is a criminal one and he will have to go.”
Kumar, a 1989-batch IPS officer, was once accused of snooping by Mamata herself during her days as Bengal’s main Opposition leader. Subsequently, he went on to become her closest confidante in the last 10 years.
Kumar has the dubious record of being removed in two previous elections—2016 Assembly polls and 2019 Lok Sabha elections--- and in case the state government complies with the Election Commission’s instructions, he will earn a hat-trick.
On April 12, 2016, ahead of voting in the Calcutta constituencies for the Bengal Assembly elections, EC had ordered his removal, following complaints of partisan behavior by all three major Opposition parties, the Left, the Congress and the BJP. He was reinstated soon after Mamata was sworn-in chief minister for a second term.
Three years later, the Bengal government had him transferred as additional director-general in the state CID, from the Calcutta Police which he was heading at that time, acting on a directive from the central poll panel.
However, following massive violence between Trinamul and the BJP supporters after a road show by then BJP national president Amit Shah, in which a bust of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar was vandalized, the poll panel showed Kumar the red-card.
After the Lok Sabha results, Kumar, along with 10 other officers who had been removed by EC, were reinstated.
Kumar has been on the CBI’s radar since February 2019 when the central probe agency had accused him of "destroying evidence" and working in "connivance with the accused" in the Saradha scam case.
In 2013, Mamata had handpicked Kumar, then commissioner of Bidhannagar police, to head a special investigation team to probe the multi-crore Ponzi scheme scam. But the CBI took over the probe on the directive of the Supreme Court in May 2014.
The chief minister herself led a three-day sit-in demonstration at Calcutta’s Metro Channel after a CBI team went to question Kumar in February 2019, while he was still the city police chief. The CBI team that went to interrogate Kumar on that February Sunday evening was detained by Kolkata Police. Kumar was later interrogated in the Meghalaya capital of Shillong on February 9, 2019.
State Trinamul spokesperson Kunal Ghosh did not respond when The Telegraph Online reached out to him for a comment.