Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday gave a strong dissent note on the process of selecting the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) during a meeting of the high-powered panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he does not want to be a part of a “biased exercise”.
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The high-level three-member panel, which also includes Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, met at 7 Lok Kalyan Marg in the evening to finalise the next CBI director. The extended tenure of the incumbent, 1986-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Praveen Sood, will come to an end on May 24. The new director’s name was not announced till the time of going to press.
In a detailed dissent note, Gandhi said he was not provided with the 360-degree reports on the eligible candidates, alleging that the government has reduced the selection process to a mere formality and the LoP cannot be a “rubber stamp”.
“The leader of opposition is not a rubber stamp. I cannot abdicate my constitutional duty by participating in this biased exercise. I, therefore, dissent in the strongest terms,” Gandhi said in his two-page dissent note.
The senior Congress leader accused the government of repeatedly misusing the CBI to target political opponents, journalists, and critics. “It is to prevent such institutional rupture that the Leader of Opposition is included in the selection committee. Regrettably, you have continued to deny me any meaningful role in the process,” he said.
“Despite repeated written requests, I was not provided with the self-appraisal reports or 360-degree reports of the eligible candidates. Instead, I was expected to examine the appraisal records of 69 candidates for the first time during the Committee meeting. The 360-degree reports were denied to me outright. A detailed review of these records is crucial to assess each candidate’s history and performance. This deliberate denial of information, without any legal basis, makes a mockery of the selection process and ensures that only your pre-decided candidate is selected,” the dissent note, reviewed by HT, said.
People familiar with the developments said a list of senior IPS officers from the 1989 to 1993 batches was prepared by the department of personnel and training (DoPT) for the high-powered committee to consider for the coveted post.
The officers whose names made it to the list for the consideration of the panel include present Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) chief Parag Jain (1989-batch); Shatrujeet Singh Kapoor from Haryana and Maharashtra DGP Sadanand Date (1990 batch); Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) director general GP Singh and his National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) counterpart Piyush Anand (1991 batch), Delhi police commissioner Satish Golccha (1992 batch), among others.
The incumbent CBI director, Praveen Sood, was appointed to the post on May 25, 2023 for a two-year period, which was extended by another 12 months by the high-powered panel in May last year.
In November 2021, the government had brought in an ordinance to amend the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) act as well as the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) act to give three one-year extensions to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) chief and CBI director, if it so desires. This was subsequently passed by Parliament a month later. The ordinance was used to give three back-to-back extensions to former ED director Sanjay Kumar Mishra.
Under Sood, CBI has won extradition cases of Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi in the UK and Belgium, respectively, but their repatriation has been held up by the governments of these countries.
