Make minutes of select panel’s meet on Alok Verma public: Kharge to Modi

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, the only dissenting voice in the panel that sacked Alok Verma as CBI director, has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demand that the government make public documents relating to the decision “so that the public can draw its own conclusions” on Alok Verma’s exit. Kharge also questioned the appointment of M Nageswara Rao as an interim director of the CBI after Alok Verma’s ouster, insisting that the appointment was neither covered under the law nor had it been vetted by the selection committee that PM Modi heads. Kharge and the Chief Justice of India are the other two members of this committee. Justice AK Sikri was the nominee of the Chief Justice of India at last week’s meeting that sacked Alok Verma. PM Modi and Justice Sikri had voted to remove Verma, Kharge opposed the decision. In his letter to PM Modi , Kharge said that the government seemed to have already made up its mind on appointing an interim CBI director and it was not placed before the selection committee meeting on January 10. The senior Congress leader urged the PM to immediately convene meeting of section committee to appoint a new CBI chief. “The actions of the government in this matter indicate that it is scared of having the CBI headed by an independent Director. The government should come clean by releasing the CVC Report, the report of Justice (AK) Patnaik and the minutes of the meeting held on 10 January 2018,” Kharge said in his letter. Justice Patnaik, the former Supreme Court judge who supervised the CVC inquiry against Verma, had said that no “allegations of corruption” were made against the former CBI chief by a witness, as had been claimed by his deputy Rakesh Asthana in connection with a case against controversial meat exporter Moin Qureshi. One of the main lines of investigation of the CVC was Asthana’s allegation that Verma accepted Rs 2 crore from Babu, a Hyderabad-based businessman, to ensure he wasn’t indicted in the case against Qureshi. Asthana levelled the allegations in a letter written to the cabinet secretary on August 24. Justice Patnaik asserted that the findings of the vigilance commission enquiry report were not his, as Verma mentioned in a letter on Friday in which he said he would not take up his new posting as director general, fire services, civil defence and home guards. The internecine fight between Verma and his deputy, who traded allegations of corruption, roiled the agency. On the intervening night of October 23 and 24, the government divested both of their powers and sent them on forced leave. M. Nageswara Rao was appointed interim director and transferred several officials, including some overseeing the investigation against Asthana. Verma challenged his removal in the Supreme Court, which on Tuesday ordered his conditional reinstatement and also asked that the selection committee meet within a week to review the CVC report on him and decide on his continuation at the CBI. Source: Hindustan Times