‘Chief justice calling’: How Bihar IPS officer ‘conned’ DGP into withdrawing liquor case

IPS Aditya Kumar has 'gone underground'. He & one Abhishek Agarwal plotted to get liquor case withdrawn, for which Agarwal called DIG posing as Bihar HC chief justice, police say.

Representational image | Commons

Patna: The Bihar Police have launched a hunt for one of their own, 2011 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Aditya Kumar, who has “gone underground” after allegations surfaced of him having duped Director General of Police (DGP) S K Singhal into withdrawing a September 2021 case lodged against him for violating the state’s anti-liquor laws.

The police headquarters in Patna was left red-faced after reports emerged that one Abhishek Agarwal allegedly impersonated the chief justice of the Patna High Court (HC) as he made multiple WhatsApp calls to the DGP, asking him to withdraw the case against Kumar. The DGP purportedly responded by “replying in the affirmative”.

“Aditya Kumar has gone underground. We have arrested and forwarded the rest four [accused] to jail. We will be asking for a warrant of arrest against the IPS officer,” Nayyer Hasnain Khan, additional director general of police (ADG), Economic Offences Wing (EOW), told The Print. 

The ADG added that the EOW registered a case against IPS officer Kumar and four others, including Agarwal, on 15 October under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Information Technology (IT) Act. 

‘Plot was hatched at Patna restaurant’

Abhishek Agarwal has admitted that he made calls to the DGP while posing as the chief justice of Patna HC, an officer who was part of the interrogation told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.

“A plot to get the case against Aditya Kumar withdrawn was hatched in a restaurant in Patna by Agarwal and the IPS officer himself. Agarwal said that he made 8-9 calls to DGP Singhal and the DGP responded to his demand by replying in the affirmative,” the officer added.

But police suspect that this may not be the first time Abhishek Agarwal alias Abhishek Bhopalika may have committed fraud by impersonation.

“We have information that when he [Agarwal] was lodged in Tihar jail, he tried to pose as a PA [personal assistant] to the Union home minister to defraud an IAS officer and attempted to defraud the father of an IPS officer when he was in Bhagalpur jail. We are gathering more information on him and may file more cases against him,” ADG Khan told the Print. 

While IPS Kumar stands accused of criminal conspiracy and Agarwal of impersonating the chief justice, police suspect that the other three accused — Shubham Kumar, Gaurav Raj and Rahul Ranjan Jaiswal — provided SIM cards on the basis of false IDs.

The accused have been booked under IPC sections 353 (use of criminal force to deter a public servant from discharge of duty), 387 (extortion), 419 (cheating by impersonation), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable document), and 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), along with sections 66(C) (fraudulent use of e-signature) and 66(D) (cheating by impersonation using communication device) of the IT Act.

The FIR, seen by ThePrint, said the EOW acted on “secret reliable information” to file a case against Kumar and his alleged accomplices.

Until February this year, IPS officer Aditya Kumar was posted as superintendent of police (SP) in Bihar’s Gaya district. It was during this posting that a case was registered against him for allegedly failing to enforce the ban imposed by the state government on the production, distribution and consumption of liquor, police sources said.

Kumar was later attached to the police headquarters in Patna and appointed assistant inspector general of police (AIG), inspections, in August, they added.

‘Social security shield’

Kumar is not the only IPS officer in Bihar under the scanner on charges of corruption.

Earlier this month, the state’s special vigilance unit raided seven locations in connection with a disproportionate assets case against Purnia SP Daya Shankar.

Similarly, Arrah SP Rakesh Dubey and Aurangabad SP Sudhir Kumar Porika were suspended in July 2021 over alleged ties to a nexus of sand mining mafia. Their suspensions were subsequently extended for another six months in January this year.

“A grave point is that most of them are young IPS officers who have completed 10 years of service,” said an IPS officer who did not wish to be named.

V S Dubey, former chief secretary of Bihar, believes that the abolition of pensions for government employees in 2004 may be one of the reasons for “growing corruption among officials”. 

“The shield for social security has gone. This has pushed officers to make money through corrupt means and buy bungalows, shares, land and other assets. They feel that they should make themselves socially secure before they retire,” he told ThePrint.

(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)