BJP claims moral victory as Supreme Court directs Kolkata Police chief to appear before CBI in Shillong

New Delhi: The BJP on Tuesday projected the apex court order directing Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar to make himself available before the CBI as a blow to the Mamata Banerjee-led government in West Bengal and a moral victory for the investigating agency. The Supreme Court said Kumar will appear before the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Meghalaya capital Shillong. The court also said no coercive steps, including the arrest of the Kolkata police chief, will take place during the course of the investigation. [caption id=“attachment_5009751” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Ravi Shankar Prasad. PTI[/caption] Senior BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad welcomed the order and said it’s a blow to the Mamata Banerjee government and a victory for the CBI. It also showed that nobody is above the law, including the police commissioner, he added. The Kolkata police commissioner will appear before the CBI in Shillong as the environment is not conducive in West Bengal, Prasad said. Describing the order as a “slap on the face” of the Mamata Banerjee-led government, top functionaries in the Centre, he said,“on a careful consideration of the court’s order. It is quite apparent that the court has taken a dim view of the Kolkatta police comissioner and the entire top bureaucracy of the Mamata government.” Emphasising that the conduct of the Mamata government’s senior officers is on watch, the functionries citing the order said, the apex court has asked the Kolkata police chief, “to faithfully cooperate with the investigating agency at all times.” The Mamata Banerjee-led government in the state and BJP are at loggerheads after the CBI tried to question Kolkata’s police commissioner in connection with chit fund scams. Banerjee has been on a ‘dharna’ since Sunday night over the CBI’s attempts to interrogate the police chief.