CBI CHIEF A LAME DUCK?
Having spent over two months twiddling his thumbs, exiled by a hostile government, Alok Verma was reinstated by the Supreme Court for the three or so weeks left in his tenure as the chief of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). But he’ll have to continue to twiddle his thumbs as the court instructed him to refrain from making any policy decisions until a selection committee, consisting of the prime minister, the leader of the largest opposition party, and the Chief Justice of India, meet to decide whether he can see out his term. Already, the Congress Party’s Mallikarjun Kharge has asked for the meeting to be postponed until he has time to review the Supreme Court judgment.
It’s a slightly odd position for the court to put the selection committee in, given that the PM is hardly likely to break with his government’s decision to send Verma on leave and Kharge is hardly likely to side with Modi. Some analysts have also questioned whether the role of the selection committee incorporates this sort of task, to judge the fitness of a CBI chief accused of corruption. The government’s case was that since both Verma and his deputy Rakesh Asthana, seen as being close to the PM, had accused each other of corruption—and were fighting like Kilkenny cats, to borrow the attorney general’s colourful phrase— they were both put on leave. It was a decision taken in consultation with the Central Vigilance Commission.
The Congress, and the likes of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, have greeted the Supreme Court’s reinstatement of Verma as a rap on the knuckles of the PM.
Certainly, the Supreme Court did say its decision was made to preserve the independence of the CBI. But as victories go, it’s somewhat hollow, given Verma’s impending retirement.
The government has not sought to challenge the ruling, with finance minister Arun Jaitley saying it would implement the verdict and that the government had been equal in its treatment of both Verma and Asthana.
It is open to question though what exactly it means for Verma to not make so-called policy decisions. The same strictures were applied to his temporary replacement M. Nageswara Rao and he set the ball rolling for a probe into Samajwadi Party leader and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s involvement in illegal sand mining. So could Verma initiate a CBI probe into the Rafale deal? And could Asthana now demand that he be reinstated? There are still some suds in this soap opera.
—Uday Mahurkar