Govt Sits On Cbi Chief'S Appointment

The government is unlikely to appoint a full-fledged CBI director in the near future despite the Union home ministry recommending four names for the job.

This was indicated here yesterday by a close aide of Prime Minister A B Vajpayee.

The panel of four officers includes former Intelligence Bureau officer Raghavan, two former police commissioners of Delhi, M B Kaushal and Nikhil Kumar, and the present acting director of CBI, Trinath Mishra.

Raghavan's name appears on top whereas Mishra's name is last. The list has been prepared on the basis of seniority.

With the government sitting on the list, Mishra will continue to run the CBI as acting director just as his predecessor D R Kartikeyan did before he retired on March 31.

 

Union home minister L K Advani told the Lok Sabha last week that the government would soon have a "purified" CBI as directed by the Supreme Court and not one that is responsible to political bosses. He said this in response to the Congress plea for an independent body to follow leads provided in the Jain Commission's final report. Asking Congress MPs not to press for an independent body, Advani had said a "purified" CBI, whose director would be appointed in accordance with the Supreme Court directive, would take up the case.

The home minister had already recommended the four names before he made his intervention in the Lok Sabha.

In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court had last year directed the government to stop appointing the CBI director through the appointment's committee of the cabinet. Instead, the court had recommended a bureaucrats' panel and a procedure for appointing the CBI director.

The panel is to include the Union home secretary, the Vigilance Commissioner and the secretary, personnel.

Mishra was appointed CBI's acting director in March by the government soon after it took over.