Justice Rajasekhar Mantha of Calcutta High Court on Wednesday transferred the murder case of hotelier Rajesh Jha aka Raju to the CBI and asked the state to hand over all related documents to the central agency with immediate effect.

Justice Mantha directed the CBI to file a preliminary report to the high court on the progress of its probe within four months.

Earlier, the April 1 murder of Jha, with alleged links with coal smuggling, was being probed by the East Burdwan police Special Investigation Team (SIT), which arrested three persons in connection with the case.

The court order came in response to a petition filed by Naran Kharka, Jha's former business partner and reportedly a friend, who sought a CBI probe.

The judge held that since Abdul Latif — who was with Jha when the murder occurred — is named in chargesheets of both coal and cattle smuggling cases, it would be better to hand over the case to the CBI which is probing both the multi-crore scams.

Jha was shot dead by three assailants at Shaktigarh near Burdwan town on April 1 evening. He was to appear before the ED on April 3.

Jha, with several cases of coal smuggling against him, joined the BJP ahead of the 2021 Assembly polls. The CID, probing the coal scam separately, arrested him after the Assembly polls. He was out on bail.

Latif and Jha's aide Bratin Mukherjee were present at the time of his murder.

East Burdwan SP Kamanasish Sen set up the SIT which first arrested Abhijit Mandal, Kharka's driver-cum-bodyguard. Kharka, with alleged links with coal smuggling, was arrested by the CBI earlier and is out on bail.

Abhijit named Indrajit Giri and Lalbabu Kumar who allegedly gave the car the killers used. The duo were also arrested.