With the uncanny knack of a man who has mastered the art of courting controversy, Rajnish Rai zeroed in on a fresh one last week: the 1992 batch Gujarat cadre IPS officer was accused of cheating in his first year LLB examination. It has taken Rai almost a year to be in the news again.

In April last year, he had created a stir when he arrested D.G. Vanzara and two other IPS officers in the Sohrabuddin Shaikh fake encounter case in Gujarat.

In his late thirties, Rai has a B.Tech degree and an MBA with a post-graduate degree in Public Policy and Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. As an Orissa cadre officer in the mid-’90s, Rai had raided the residence of the then Orissa Assembly speaker Chintamani Dhyansamantrai to nab some culprits. The Legislature had slapped a privilege motion against him, which was subsequently stayed by the SC.

After changing his cadre to Gujarat in 1997, Rai was in the limelight between 2000 and 2002 when he served as SP in the CBI in Gandhinagar. During this period, he handled a few sensitive cases : the Kandla Port Trust corruption case, the satellite mapping case, the Rs 1,300-crore High Speed Diesel (HSD) case, and the IPCL case over an alleged irregular purchase of land. His CBI stint came to an abrupt end while he was closing in on some influential business houses of Gujarat in the Rs 150-crore Naptha scandal.

Earlier, as SP, Bhavnagar, Rai had raided the residence of Gujarat Minister Parsottam Solanki without government permission and nabbed a builder, who was allegedly seeking protection by the ruling party. The builder is now lodged in the Sabarmati Central Jail, much like the three IPS officers.

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