PTI, NEW DELHI: In an unprecedented shake-up in the CBI’s 55-year-history, both its Director Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana were stripped of their powers and sent on leave in a dramatic overnight action by the government after their worsening feud sparked a serious crisis in the country’s premier probe agency.
As the government went into damage control mode in a bid to defuse the crisis, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi late Tuesday night named Joint Director M Nageswar Rao, a 1986-batch Odisha cadre IPS officer, as interim director with “immediate effect”.
Immediately after taking charge around midnight, Rao ordered transfers of a dozen officers with one of them being sent to Port Blair and also constituted a fresh team to probe bribery and extortion charges against Asthana. Most of the officers shifted were part of the probe teams against Asthana, a Gujarat cadre IPS officer, according to sources.
A government order divested Verma and Asthana of their powers and they were sent on leave.
But Verma knocked the doors of the Supreme Court Wednesday challenging the government’s decision after which it agreed to hear his plea on Friday. Verma contended that divesting him of his powers “overnight” amounts to interference in the independence of the agency.
He said as the CBI is expected to function completely independently and autonomously, there are bound to be occasions when certain investigations into high functionaries do not take the direction that may be desirable to the government.
