SC to hear plea against Asthana’s selection

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 7

With the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a petition on December 9, challenging the appointment of Rakesh Asthana as CBI’s interim Director,  the Congress today openly accused the government of vitiating the selection process. A Bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice L Nageswara Rao will hear a PIL by Common Cause, an NGO, challenging the appointment of Rakesh Asthana as  “arbitrary”. 

Red-flagging the government move appointing Asthana, a 1984 Gujarat-cadre IPS officer, as interim chief of the premier probe agency, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, in a letter to the PM, sought an urgent meeting of the selection committee tasked to select the CBI chief.

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Under the Lokpal Act, a three-member selection panel comprising the Prime Minister, leader of the largest Opposition party in the Lok Sabha (Mallikarjun Kharge in this case) and the Chief Justice of India is to select the CBI Director. Also, under a previous SC judgment, the new Director needs to be appointed before the incumbent demits office after a two-year fixed tenure.

Kharge’s letter says the government failed to convene a meeting of the selection committee in time to select the new CBI chief and suddenly transferred the seniormost CBI officer to the Home Ministry to make way for Asthana as interim chief, indicating intentions to foist a “suitable candidate” in that position.

The Congress, which plans to raise the matter in Parliament, asked why RK Dutta, the senior-most officer with the CBI, was transferred to the Home Ministry on November 30, barely two days before Anil Sinha, the previous CBI Director, was to demit office.

Kharge’s letter to PM says, “The Government failed to convene a meeting that was to be chaired by you to finalise the selection of the Director. With the sudden transfer of Special Director RK Dutta, the senior-most officer after the Director, as Special Secretary to the Ministry of Home Affairs on November 30, it now appears that this was done deliberately to facilitate giving the charge of the post of CBI Director to an officiating junior officer.”

The government tonight said Asthana had been given charge as an interim arrangement. For selecting a full-time CBI Director, the selection panel would meet soon, said sources.