Name of former interim CBI chief's wife emerges in alleged graft case

Kolkata: Within a few hours of Commissioner of Police (CP) Kolkata Rajeev Kumar reaching Shillong to face CBI on Saturday, the Detective Department of Kolkata Police raided a house in Salt Lake. According to sources, Kolkata Police has recently received a complaint regarding irregularities in a financial company identified as Angela Mercantile, with which the wife of former interim CBI director Nageswar Rao is connected.

Sources informed that Rao's wife had taken a loan of Rs 25 lakh from the company, which has its registered address at CA-39 in Salt Lake. Rao had previously claimed that the company belonged to a friend of his. After obtaining the loan, his wife bought some land in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh in 2010. Later, she sold part of the plot for approximately Rs 30 lakh. Two months later, she sold the rest of the land for around Rs 28 lakh.

After selling the land, she added some more money from her own savings and sent Rs 60 lakh to Angela Mercantile in 2011. Rao also claimed that Angela Mercantile retained Rs 35 lakh as an investment after deducting the loan amount.

Later, in 2014, Rao's wife got Rs 41 lakh approximately as return, including the interest. Though he claimed that the company has their registered office in Salt Lake, there is no physical existence of any such firm. On Friday, two teams of Kolkata Police comprising 30 police personnel raided two places across the city, in Salt Lake and in Clive Row. According to sources, the registered address of the said firm was CA-39 in Salt Lake. But last year, the address was changed to a building in Clive Row.