New Delhi: The war of words between the Congress and the BJP-led Central government over CBI intensified on Tuesday with Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, the only dissenting voice in the panel that sacked Alok Verma as CBI director, terming the appointment of M. Nageswara Rao as the CBI’s interim director “llegal” and demanding that a meeting of the selection committee be convened immediately to appoint a new chief of the central probe agency.
Mr Kharge wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and demanded that the government make public documents relating to the removal of Mr Verma “so that the public can draw its own conclusions” on the CBI director’s exit.
“Actions of the government indicate that it’s scared of a CBI headed by an independent director,” Mr Kharge wrote in his letter to PM Modi.
Mr Kharge, who represented the Opposition in the three-member selection committee, in which the votes of PM Modi and Justice A.K. Sikri decided Alok Verma’s removal as director of the CBI, demanded that the government make public the CVC report, Justice A.K. Patnaik’s report and minutes of the January 10 meeting in which Mr Verma was removed.
“Despite my best efforts to convince the members of the committee that we should be following the due process of law and the principles of natural justice, the members chose to take a decision based on the report that now stands disowned by Justice Patnaik,” Mr Kharge said in his letter to Mr Modi.
The Congress leader said the media had widely reported that Justice Patnaik had said “there was no evidence of corruption against Mr Verma” and “what the CVC says cannot be the final work” and termed the action of the committee “hasty”.
Barely two days after the Supreme Court reinstated him, Mr Verma was removed as CBI director by the high-powered committee headed by PM 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.
The CVC claimed that it had found evidence of influencing of probe in the Moin Qureshi case and there were intercepts of RAW, an external snooping agency, that Rs 2 crore had changed hands. The CVC was of the view that his conduct in the case was suspicious and there was a prima facie case against him, and wanted a criminal investigation to be conducted in the case. In the IRCTC case, the CVC felt that it can be reasonably concluded that Mr Verma deliberately excluded a name from the FIR, for reasons best known to him. The CVC also found instances of wilful non-production of record and fabrication of record. The committee also took note of Mr Verma’s attempts to induct officers of doubtful integrity in the CBI.
