Delhi Police chief Verma to head CBI

Mukjesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 19

Delhi Police Commissioner Alok Kumar Verma was today appointed as the Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). He will succeed Anil Sinha, who retired on December 2 last year.

A controversy had preceded Verma’s selection to the post by a three-member search and selection panel — headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chief Justice of India JS Khehar and Leader of largest Opposition party (Congress) in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge as members — with the government shifting the second-in-command in CBI RK Dutta (1981-batch Karnataka cadre IPS officer) to the Ministry of Home Affairs as Special Secretary and an NGO approaching the SC against it. 

Since then, Gujarat cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana was acting as the interim director of the agency. Though the selection panel meeting took place on January 16, a decision in this regard was issued today, which showed how the government was careful in Verma’s appointment, as even Kharge had expressed his reservation on his name.

Verma, a 1979-batch IPS officer of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre, has been appointed the Director of the CBI, an official said on Thursday evening.

Verma, who has been the Delhi Police chief for the last 11 months, was, however, one among the frontrunners for the post. The others in the race were ITBP chief Krishna Chaudhary, head of National Police Academy Aruna Bahuguna, SSB DG Archana Ramasundram and 1981-batch Maharastra cadre IPS officer Satish Mathur.    

Verma was earlier the director general of Tihar prisons and the police chief of Mizoram. He has also served as the joint and special commissioner of the Delhi Police crime branch between August 2007 and December 2008. The new Director’s appointment in the CBI is his 24th posting in his 36-year career. Verma is due to retire in July this year, but he will now have a fixed two-year tenure from the date of assumption of office.