Panel to select CBI chief Jan 24

New Delhi: The high-powered selection committee is likely to meet on January 24 to appoint the new CBI director.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads the committee in which the Chief Justice of India and Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge are the other members. Sources said the government had proposed the meeting on January 21 earlier while Mr Kharge wanted the meeting on January 24 or 25.

After mutual consultations, the government has finalised January 24 as the date for the meeting to select the new CBI director, a post which is lying vacant ever since the government removed Alok Verma and appointed him as director general (fire service).

IPS officer M. Nageswara Rao was named the interim director of the CBI. The Congress has been attacking the Prime Minister for not appointing a regular CBI director.

Mr Kharge had also written to the Prime Minister demanding early holding of the meeting of the high-powered committee to appoint a regular CBI director.Mr  Kharge alleged that the government is scared of the CBI, led by an “independent” director.

“Actions of the government indicate that it’s scared of a CBI headed by an independent director,” Mr Kharge had written in his letter to Prime Minister Modi. He also demanded that the government come clean on the issues and make public the CVC report, Justice A.K. Patnaik’s report and minutes of the January 10 meeting. Mr Rao’s appointment as CBI interim chief is “illegal”, the Congress leader wrote in the letter.   

Barely two days after the Supreme Court reinstated him, Mr Verma was Thursday last removed as the CBI director by the high-powered committee headed by Prime Minister Modi on charges of corruption and dereliction of duty, in an unprecedented action in the Central probe agency’s 55-year history.

There were eight charges against Mr Verma in the CVC report presented before the committee that also comprised Mr Kharge and Justice A.K. Sikri, appointed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi as his nominee.