Govt not ready to give up hold on central agencies: Venugopal

Senior counsel was referring to controversial selection of TN cadre IPS officer Rajasundaram at CBI against CVC proposals

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The appointment of Archana Rajasundaram as the additional director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is likely to get further complicated as senior counsel of CBI, K K Venugopal, hinted towards the possibility of a public interest litigation (PIL) being filed in the matter.

Venugopal was speaking in an event celebrating 50 years of the Central Vigilance Commission.

Referring to the controversial selection of the Tamil Nadu cadre IPS officer Rajasundaram against the recommendation of the CVC he said, “Government is not prepared to give up its hold up these institutes,” K K Venugopal senior advocate said.

The appointment for the senior level post has been cleared by the Prime Minister headed Appointment Committee of Cabinet.

On whether the government was trying to exercise its control over CBI by influencing these appointments Sinha said, “I don’t think this requires any answer.”

However, the list of the names that were originally recommended for the post came from the CBI director, Ranjit Sinha.

The names were then sent to the Home Ministry who referred it to the Department of Personnel and Training. Thereafter DoPT forwarded the list to the CVC. Former Vigilance Commissioner, CVC R Sri Kumar said, “According to the rules CVC’s recommendation shall be followed. All this (controversy) is wholly unnecessary. Government is not being well advised.”

According to the norms a committee has to recommend a panel of officers for the post of director, CBI but for posts of Superintendent of Police and above CVC can directly recommend the name of an officer.

CVC had proposed the name of R K Pachnanda senior IPS officer of West Bengal cadre for the post of additional director. But, ACC after finding unfavourable reports against the officer had asked CVC to come up with some other IPS officer’s name.

The additional director is second in command at CBI after the director, under whom the anti-corruption zone falls. The Patna, Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai zone also report into the additional director.