Verma refuses to join new post, slams govt

PARTING SHOT Says process ‘turned upside down’ in his case, criticises CVC

NEW DELHI: Alok Verma quit on Friday without spending even a day at work as director general of fire services, civil defence and home guards, using his resignation letter addressed to C Chandramouli, secretary in the ministry of personnel, to complain bitterly that he had been denied “natural justice” by a high-level panel that removed him from the helm of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) one day ago based on a report by the Central Vigilance Commission.

It was an unceremonious exit for the Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, who was stripped of his powers as CBI director and sent on forced leave by the government on the intervening night of October 23-24, reinstated conditionally by the Supreme Court on January 9 and two days later ousted from the agency and reassigned to the new job by the three-member selection committee, headed by the Prime Minister, which chooses the CBI chief.

“The Selection Committee has not provided the undersigned an opportunity to explain the details as recorded by the CVC before arriving at the decision,” Verma wrote in his resignation letter. “Natural Justice was scuttled and the entire process was turned upside down in ensuring that the undersigned is removed from the post of Director, CBI.”

NEWDELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday filed a supplementary charge sheet in the ~24.60 billion Saradha ponzi scheme case where it named Nalini Chidambaram, the wife of senior Congress leader and former Union minister P Chidambaram.

An officer of the investigative agency, speaking on conditions of anonymity, said that it was alleged in the 150-page document that a total of ~14.3 million was transferred to the account of Nalini Chidambaram in phases. This is the sixth supplementary charge sheet in the case.

The first charge sheet was filed in October 2014. In September 2014, Nalini Chidambaram, a Chennai-based lawyer, was questioned by the CBI after Saradha chairman Sudipta Sen alleged during probe that he paid they money. In an 18- page letter to Central Bureau of Investigation, Sen also claimed that he paid for Nalini ’s visit to Kolkata and her stay in a 5-star hotel.htc