The West Bengal government has decided to write to the Centre, requesting for the status of the CBI investigation in a case related to the theft of Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel Prize medallion. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said a few days ago that if the CBI was “unable” to crack the case, the State government was ready to take it over.
“We wrote to the Department of Personnel and Training [DoPT], which runs the CBI, last December,” Chief Secretary Basudeb Banerjee told The Hindu on Saturday.
Earlier, he said the process got held up because of the Assembly elections. “We will send them [Centre] a reminder soon,” Mr. Banerjee said.
State administration sources said the Home Department wrote to the DoPT on Friday, asking for case details.
“Tagore’s Nobel prize is our pride and a significant part of our culture. If they [Centre] cannot recover it, we should be given a chance,” the Chief Minister said on Thursday.
The theft of the medallion, along with 47 pieces of memorabilia, came to light on March 25, 2007, following which Ms. Banerjee, then an Opposition leader, demanded that the then Left Front government order a CBI investigation. Soon after, the then Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee announced that the CBI would investigate the case. However, after failing to make any significant breakthrough, the CBI closed the case in 2010.
The Opposition, however, has questioned Ms. Banerjee’s decision and pointed out that she was the one who demanded a CBI probe. They wondered why the Chief Minister suddenly wanted the State to take over the probe five years after CBI closed the case.
