CBI vs CBI: Joint Director M Nageshwar Rao appointed as interim chief of CBI; Govt sends director Alok Verma on leave

After a tussle between two top officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the central government has divested the agency’s director, Alok Verma.

The government has also issued the order saying that M Nageshwar Rao, Joint Director, CBI shall look after duties and functions of CBI Director with immediate effect.

Here’s what the official statement reads:

‘The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved that during the period of the subsistence of the aforesaid interim measure, cited in reference above, Shri M Nageshwar Rao, IPS, presently working as Joint Director, CBI shall look after duties and functions of Director CBI and shall take over the duties and functions with immediate effect.’

This decision has come after when Alok Verma was at blunt with the CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana booked by an agency in an alleged bribery case.

Rakesh Asthana has also removed as Special Director and stripped of all his duties yesterday.

However, Alok had joined the IPS in 1979 when he was just 22-years-old and was allotted to the AGMUT (Arunachal, Goa, Mizoram, UTs) cadre. Reports suggested that he was the youngest officer in his batch. Before CBI Director, he had been Commissioner of Police, Delhi; Director General of Prisons, Delhi; Director General of Police, Mizoram; DGP, Puducherry and IGP, Andaman & Nicobar Islands. He was the only one who held the position in CBI without any experience in the agency.