NEW DELHI: Additional Director M Nageshwar Rao on Friday took charge as the interim director of the Central Investigation Agency (CBI).
Rao will occupy the post and look after the duties of CBI chief till a new appointment is done or until further orders from the government.
M. Nageshwar Rao, Additional Director, CBI has assumed the charge of the office of Director, CBI after Alok Verma was transferred yesterday as DG Fire Services, Home Guards and Civil Defence. pic.twitter.com/byJxaH5Ywj
— ANI (@ANI) January 11, 2019
Rao was given the charge after CBI Director Alok Verma was sacked by the Centre and transferred as DG Fire Services, Home Guards and Civil Defence on Thursday.
Verma was sacked after a two-hour-long meeting of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Selection Committee in New Delhi.
The panel which also included Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the largest party in the Lok Sabha and the second senior-most Supreme Court judge, AK Sikri, decided to remove Alok Verma with a 2-1 majority.
Verma, whose two-year fixed tenure as CBI director would have ended on January 31, 2019, has was posted as the DG Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards, by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC).
Importantly, Rao was appointed the interim CBI chief for the second time.
Rao, a 1986-batch Odisha cadre IPS officer, was given the duties and functions of CBI director late night on October 23, 2018, after Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana were divested of all powers by the government following a spat between them.
The next morning, Rao had effected a large number of transfers, including of officials probing a corruption case against Asthana like DSP A K Bassi, DIG M K Sinha and Joint Director A K Sharma.
Source: Zee News