The Central Bureau of Investigation has told the Central Vigilance Commission that CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana cannot represent its Director Alok Verma, The Indian Express reported on Monday. Asthana, the second most senior officer, does not have the powers to represent chief Verma, the investigation agency wrote in a letter.
It also told the vigilance body that several officers who were being considered to be inducted in the CBI were being examined as suspects or accused in criminal cases that the agency was investigating.
The CBI wrote two letters to the CVC after the vigilance body informed it on July 10 of a meeting of the CBI selection committee on July 12. The investigating agency, in its letter, complained about the short notice and said it had not received the formal agenda for the meeting.
The CBI said that it “had already expressed its concern on May 18th, 2018, vide letter.. wherein it was requested that CBI be given sufficient time in advance to conduct due diligence checks on the officers/ candidates being proposed for induction”. The letters were issued by the CBI’s policy division with the “approval of the Director, CBI”.
“In the previous CBI Selection Committee meeting, names of officers who were being considered for induction in CBI were under examination by the CBI as suspects/ accused in criminal cases under investigation with the Bureau,” the CBI said, adding that it had conveyed this in a letter on July 6. “This was also formally conveyed in the previous CBI Selection Committee meetings as well as during the monthly meetings held between the CVC and the CBI”.
The letter said Alok Verma was on official tour to Uruguay on July 12, and asked the CVC to conduct the meeting after July 19.
The CBI wrote one of the letters stating “the charge/ powers of Director, CBI have not been given to” Asthana when the CVC asked the officer holding charge of the CBI director to attend the July 12 meeting, The Indian Express reported.
The second letter said the matter had been discussed with Verma over the phone and that Asthana’s “role is under scanner of this bureau (CBI) in certain cases”. So, to “maintain organisational integrity”, he “cannot be consulted for inducting officers into CBI” when the director is not available.
“It has been observed that, during investigation in one of the cases that the name of Sh. Jyoti Narayan, IPS (UP-1996) for the post of Jt. [Joint] Director in CBI was being pursued by the Special Director CBI,” the letter said. But Narayan “was being examined for his role as a suspect in a criminal case being investigated by the CBI”, the letter added. Narayan is currently the joint director general in the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security.
Neither CBI officials nor vigilance commission officials responded to The Indian Express despite several attempts, the newspaper said.
Asthana’s appointment as the CBI special director in October had invited criticism from several quarters. The non-governmental organisation Common Cause had filed a petition in the Supreme Court calling the appointment “illegal”. The petition had alleged that Asthana’s appointment violated the principles of “impeccable integrity” and “institutional integrity”.
Asthana’s name had surfaced in a diary obtained by the CBI from the premises of Gujarat-based Sterling Biotech in August. This suggested that Asthana had accepted bribes from the company, the petitioners alleged. The Supreme Court, however, dismissed the plea saying there was no violation.
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