With joint director Arun Kumar leaving the Central Bureau of Investigation to join his parent cadre, the investigating agency on Wednesday transferred the double-murder case of teenager Arushi Talwar and domestic help Hemraj to its unit in Dehradun.

Kumar had led the CBI team in Delhi that was investigating the case for the past 15 months. The probe had faced flak after the CBI failed to find the murder weapon, mobile phones of Arushi and Hemraj, and could not even file a chargesheet in the case.

The transfer of investigation comes amid fresh revelations of alleged lapses in the probe, including a possibility that the vaginal swab sent to the forensic laboratory was not Arushi’s.

The investigations have now been handed over to Superintendent of Police (Dehradun) Nilabh Kishore, who is also handling the alleged fake encounter in Dehradun of an MBA graduate from Ghaziabad. The probe would be under the overall supervision of Lucknow CBI joint director Javed Ahmad and additional director S C Sinha.

CBI director Ashwani Kumar issued the notification about the case transfer today.

CBI took over the case from Noida police on May 31, 2008. Led by Arun Kumar, the team conducted several tests, including lie-detection, brain-mapping and narco-analysis, on the three suspects — Krishna, Rajkumar and Vijay Mandal — and on Arushi’s parents Dr Rajesh and Nupur Talwar.

According to a source, the CBI director was unhappy with Arun Kumar’s “line of investigation” ever since he joined last year. “The case was transferred to Dehradun since no development has emerged in the investigation even after all these months,” the source said. “The forensic reports have also gone against CBI’s line of probe.

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