Alok Verma is new CBI chief, Congress objects

The Centre on Thursday appointed Delhi Police Commissioner Alok Verma as the new CBI Director. Hours later, the Congress called it a “wrong selection”. Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, who is a part of the three-member selection committee along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Justice of India J S Khehar, opposed the appointment and gave a dissent note. “I gave my opinion in writing. I said a person who fulfils all the conditions should be appointed. A person who has a long service record should be appointed. I said all rules and procedures should be followed and a person who has worked in the CBI, on corruption cases, should be given the post. They have ignored that,” Kharge told The Indian Express. At the meeting of the selection panel on Monday, Kharge is learnt to have said that a person who has worked with the CBI should be made Director. He was apparently referring to R K Dutta, who has served as CBI Additional Director. “He (Dutta) was eligible for the Director’s post, but the government brought in someone from outside,” said a senior party leader. Verma, however, has served in the Vigilance Bureau, which technically qualifies him for the post. A 1979-batch IPS officer of the AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory) cadre, Verma will have a fixed two-year tenure as CBI chief. He earlier served as the Director General of Tihar Jail. Among the other contenders for the CBI chief’s post were ITBP Director General Krishna Choudhary and Maharashtra DGP S C Mathur. The post of CBI Director has been lying vacant for over a month following Anil Sinha’s retirement on December 2, after which the government appointed Gujarat-cadre Rakesh Asthana as the interim CBI chief.