Rajeev Kumar was reinstated as Bengal’s director-general of police (DGP) on Monday, nearly four months after the Election Commission of India removed him from the post ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

A 1989-batch IPS officer, Kumar replaced Sanjoy Mukherjee, whom the poll panel had chosen as the Bengal DGP.

On Monday, Mukherjee was shifted to the fire services department. His rank as the director-general of police remains unchanged.

Since his removal by the poll panel, Kumar had been an additional chief secretary in the state’s department of information technology and electronics. A notification on Monday from the state government said Kumar’s reinstatement was in concurrence with an order from governor C.V. Anand Bose.

Kumar, who has been in the headlines several times in his career, has served in significant posts, including the Calcutta police commissioner, additional director-general of police, CID; Bidhannagar police commissioner; additional commissioner of Kolkata Police; joint commissioner, special task force; deputy inspector-general, CID (operations); special superintendent of police, CID; and deputy commissioner, central, Kolkata Police.

Kumar, 57, was caught in a web of controversy during his stint as Calcutta police commissioner in 2019, when the CBI named him in a document submitted in court, accusing him of charges such as “tampering with evidence”, “suppression of facts”, “corruption” and alleged nexus with “political party”, in connection with a probe into default scams like Saradha.

“There was never any doubt about Kumar’s reinstatement as the state DGP after the Lok Sabha polls were over,” said an official in the state home department. “The process was slightly delayed till the declaration of the bypoll results.”

In 2016, Kumar was removed from the post of Calcutta’s police commissioner ahead of the Assembly elections. Opposition leaders had accused Kumar of tapping their mobile phones.