CBI Director Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana were fighting like "kilkenny cats", exposing the country's premier investigating agency to "public ridicule", the government told the Supreme Court on Wednesday while justifying the decision to divest Verma of his duties.
Attorney General (AG) K K Venugopal also told the bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi that the government was well "within its right to intervene" and send both officers on leave by divesting them of their powers.
The top law officer also asserted that "only the God knows where and how this fight between the two top officers would have ended" if the government would not have taken the action which was aimed at restoring the public faith in the CBI.
"The government was watching with amazement. The two top most officers were fighting like kilkenny cats...Dispute between the CBI Director and Special Director was pulling down integrity and respect of premier institution," Venugopal told the bench, also comprising Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph.
"fight like a Kilkenny cat" refers to an old Irish story about two cats who fought to the death and ate each other up such that only their tails were left. It is often used figuratively of two people who are vehemently opposed in attitudes or opinions to the extent that they will never agree and will spark fire off each other whenever they meet.
The AG further submitted that the two top officers, Verma and Asthana, were "fighting against each other and went public which exposed CBI to public ridicule."
He also read Department of Personnel and Training order against Verma and Asthana and said "the dispute between the CBI Director and the Special Director was pulling down the the respect and integrity of the institution which got eroded."
"The government was compelled to intervene. Though, it could have done so in July itself," he said, adding, "there were large number of allegations. The government's worry was that CBI was becoming a subject matter of public ridicule. We had to prevent this... the government had to act keeping in mind the totality of facts. Totality required action."
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