PTI : The West Bengal CID today arrested M A V Raju, husband of former IPS officer Bharati Ghosh after the Calcutta High Court rejected his anticipatory prayer, a senior officer of the agency said.
Raju was been taken into custody and arrested after being taken to the CID headquarter here.
Earlier, in the day Calcutta High Court rejected Raju’s anticipatory bail prayer in connection with its probe into a case of alleged extortion and illegal exchange of banned notes for gold.
“We need him for questioning. He has information about the case,” the CID officer said.
At the high court Advocate General Kishore Dutta appearing for the state opposed the anticipatory bail prayer and submitted that huge amounts of money had been seized from his flat.
Dutta submitted before a division bench of Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Abhijit Gangopadhyay that other persons had also given statements that Raju had allegedly kept money in their flats.
The AG, assisted by public prosecutor Saswata Gopal Mukherjee, submitted that custodial interrogation of Raju is necessary to unravel missing links and to bring out the larger conspiracy in defrauding the public.
Raju’s counsel submitted that he has been cooperating with the state CID, which is investigating the case, as earlier directed by the court and as such there was no requirement for his custody in the investigation.
Raju had been given interim respite by another division bench in February when he moved the court with his prayer. The court had then restrained CID from arresting him till disposal of his anticipatory bail plea and had directed him to cooperate with the investigators.
Raju’s counsel had earlier submitted that he was being harassed as he was the husband of Bharati Ghosh.
Ghosh, who was the West Midnapore superintendent of police for more than six years, was transferred as commandant of the third battalion of the state armed police on December 26 last year. She resigned from service two days later.
She was once considered close to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and was also awarded a service medal on August 15, 2014.
Ghosh was transferred twice, once by the Election Commission before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the second time by the state itself before the 2016 Assembly elections.
She was, however, reinstated as West Midnapore SP as soon as the elections got over on both occasions.
The CID, probing cases relating to alleged extortion and misconduct against Ghosh, had also conducted raids at various properties, including a house in Kolkata that belongs to her husband Raju.
Denying the harassment allegations levelled by Raju’s counsel, the AG had told the court that investigations were being held into alleged extortion and cheating of a businessman by some lower level police officials in West Midnapore.
He claimed that a large amount of money has been recovered from the residence of Raju and his wife apart from deeds of land holdings.
