india

Updated: Feb 04, 2019 10:52 IST

Rishi Kumar Shukla took over as the chief of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday. A 1983-batch IPS officer, Shukla took charge at a time when the agency is busy in a turf war with the Kolkata Police which has spiralled into a political slugfest between the Centre and West Bengal Government.

A perplexed interim CBI chief M Nageswara Rao was seen scrambling resources to counter the West Bengal Police’s action that not only detained a CBI team, which went to question Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar, but also cordoned off the agency’s office at the CGO complex in Salt Lake city.

The arrival of 58-year old Shukla, a former DGP of the Madhya Pradesh Police and an Intelligence Bureau veteran, as a full-fledged director is likely to bring some sort of order in the agency as it moves to the Supreme Court to challenge the action of the West Bengal government in ponzi scam cases.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had started a dharna on Sunday evening to protest against the alleged highhandedness of the Centre and insults meted out to her by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah. The issues were triggered when a team of CBI officials arrived unannounced at the doors of Kolkata Police chief Rajeev Kumar to question him in connection with Saradha and Rose Valley scam.

The investigations in these cases have been sped up in the run up to the general elections with the agency recently questioning a close aide of Banerjee at his residence.

The team was stopped by West Bengal Police personnel and they were bundled into a police vehicle and taken to a police station. The West Bengal Police took the action as the agency’s officials had failed to produce any warrant, state police officials had said.