Senior IFS officer to appear before CBI on Monday

New Delhi, Apr 15 (UNI) Senior Indian Foreign Service officer Rakesh Kumar, who arrived here from Germany yesterday, would appear before the CBI on Monday to reply to the allegations of his involvment in the human trafficking case.

The CBI sources said here, the agency had served him a notice at his office in the Ministry of External Affairs to appear before it for questioning.

Kumar allegedly conspired with others in sending a team of artistes to abroad who did not return after staging performaces.

He arrived here on Friday morning after prolonging his hospitalisation in a German city for nearly a fortnight.

Kumar, a 1972 batch IFS officer, at present posted as the Special Secretary (Economic Relations) in the Ministry of External Affairs landed here at the IGI airport in Lufthansa Airlines from Munich.

He came a day after CBI served a notice to the Minstry of External Affairs under the section 160 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) asking it to direct the officer to make himself available before the agency for questioning.

The CBI had registered a 'preliminary enquiry' after finding prima facie evidence against Kumar during his tenure as the Director General of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and named him in the FIR along with three others.

Besides Kumar, Programme Officer of ICCR Kehkeshan Tyagi, Har Gulab Singh and Shiv Kumar Sharma were named by the agency in the FIR filed in a designated CBI court after which raids were conducted at the residential and official premises of all the accused on March 29.

The other accused had been nabbed by the CBI.

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