An Alipore court said on Thursday that the CBI need not obtain an order from any lower court to arrest former Calcutta police chief Rajeev Kumar if he was not cooperating in the Saradha probe.

Calcutta High Court had last week withdrawn an interim protection against the arrest it had earlier granted to the IPS officer.

“The Supreme Court and high courts have given the investigating agency powers to arrest any person for not co-operating in its probe into any criminal case. For the purpose, the investigating agency need not have to obtain special order from the courts below,” additional chief judicial magistrate Subrata Mukherjee said on Thursday.

The order followed a CBI plea for a non-bailable warrant against Kumar. The judge declined to accept an argument by Kumar’s counsel that the CBI would have to obtain approval from the state authorities for arresting Kumar.

Although the court order came later in the day, the agency went looking for Kumar through Thursday.

Sixteen CBI officers, split in four groups, raided various places in the city to find out the whereabouts of the IPS officer.