India’s CBI chief sacked over graft allegations
‘EXTRAORDINARY AND UNPRECEDENTED CIRCUMSTANCES’ CITED AS VERMA AND ASTHANA ARE RELIEVED OF ROLES IN MIDNIGHT DRAMA
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government yesterday removed the chief of India’s federal investigation agency and his deputy after months of infighting that saw the pair accusing each other of corruption.
Alok Verma, the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and his second-in-command Rakesh Asthana were relieved of duty pending inquiry, the government said in a statement.
Both men had levelled “grave allegations of corruption” against one another, risking a “potential loss of credibility and reputation” to the agency.
The government took the unusual step of intervening because of “extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances” at the CBI, including Verma refusing to hand over documents as part of a government inquiry into misconduct.
Verma last week launched a bribery investigation into Asthana, accusing him of taking bribes to stymie a probe into an exporter facing charges of money laundering and tax evasion.
Asthana had already accused his boss of taking kickbacks in the same case.
The government, in standing down both men, also quashed Verma’s inquiry into alleged corruption involving his deputy and ordered the investigators to stand down.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government took the rare step of removing the director of the country’s top federal law enforcement agency and one of his deputies over “grave allegations of corruption”.
Alok Kumar Verma, director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and Rakesh Asthana, a special director at the agency, were relieved of their roles in a midnight drama, with both men accusing each other of corruption. CBI official M. Nageshwar Rao was named as the interim director.
India’s Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), an autonomous anti-corruption body, had recommended the removal of Verma and Asthana on Tuesday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in a news conference yesterday, calling it a “bizarre and unfortunate” situation.
The administration said it acted given the “extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances”, including Verma failing to furnish documents in an investigation being conducted by the CVC, which oversees the CBI. The CVC said Verma had been “non-cooperative” and had created “wilful obstructions in the functioning of the Commission”.
Simmering feud
A feud between Verma and Ashthana had been simmering since mid-2017, when Asthana was promoted to the agency’s second-highest post. Under Verma, the CBI filed a case against Asthana on allegations that he took bribes from a meat exporter the agency was investigating for money laundering.
On Monday, the agency arrested its deputy superintendent of police — the lead in the money-laundering investigation — on forgery charges related to the allegations against Asthana. On Tuesday, Asthana asked the Delhi High Court to quash the case against him.
Verma, who cannot be removed from office as he has a mandated two-year term that ends in December, contested his removal at the apex court.
Early hearing
A three-judge panel headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi agreed to an early hearing of his case on Friday. In his petition, Verma said his removal strikes at the independence of CBI and the decision came so that “certain investigations into high functionaries” did not take a direction that was unsuitable to the government.
Opposition parties led by Congress party president Rahul Gandhi, lashed out at the government’s intervention amid speculation that the ousted CBI director was planning to order an investigation into India’s controversial purchase in 2015 of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France. Earlier this month, Verma personally met Arun Shourie, Prashant Bhushan and Yashwant Sinha, all fierce critics of the Modi government, when they filed a complaint about corruption in the Rafale deal. The three have filed a Supreme Court petition urging an independent and thorough investigation into the Rafale deal.
Interim director Nageswara Rao transferred as many as 13 officers of the agency.