Alok Verma removed as CBI chief by PM Modi-led selection committee

A selection committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi met to decide the fate of CBI Director Alok Verma, reinstated by a Supreme Court order

A three-member committee led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday by a majority vote removed Alok Verma as CBI Director, two days after the Supreme Court scrapped a government order and reinstated him.

The committee, which also included Mallikarjun Kharge, the Congress party’s leader in the Lok Sabha, and Supreme Court Justice A K Sikri, removed Verma after considering the Central Vigilance Commission’s (CVC) investigation of corruption charges against the officer.

There were eight counts of charges of corruption and dereliction of duty against him in the CVC report. Modi and Sikri, who appeared as a nominee of Supreme Court Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, agreed with the CVC's report and Kharge dissented.

Verma has been posted as Director General Fire Service, Civil Defence and Home Guards, under the Union Home Ministry. Nageshwar Rao will be incharge of the CBI.

The Congress party said on Twitter the committee hadn’t given Verma a chance to defend himself and this showed Modi was “too afraid” of an independent investigation of allegations of corruption against his government.

The Supreme Court reinstated Verma on Tuesday as CBI Director and set aside the CVC's and the government's October 23 order removing him but said he will not take any policy decision till the PM-led committee goes into the issue afresh.

Verma, a 1979-batch IPS officer, will retire at the end of this month.