Slugfest in the CBI: Oh! my God, another Modi?     

The bribery scandal and the case instituted against him have destroyed Rakesh Asthana’s chances of becoming Director, CBI. And the likely beneficiary is the IPS officer from Haryana and the NIA chief, YC Modi, whose father has been a RSS Pracharak

The exclamation came from a serving bureaucrat when he learnt that YC Modi, Director General of NIA (National Investigation Agency), is tipped to be the next Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation. The mock-horror is not entirely misplaced though as the police officer, like Rakesh Asthana, has also a strong Gujarat connection.

Yogesh Chander Modi, an IPS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, spent eight years on deputation to the CBI between 2002 and 2010. The high points of his tenure in the CBI were investigation into the murder of Haren Pandya, former Gujarat Home Minister and a political rival of Narendra Modi, in 2003 and investigation into several crucial cases of Gujarat riots in 2002.

In the Pandya murder case, all the accused held guilty by Modi’s team were acquitted by the High Court. The evidence did not match the claims made in the chargesheet. While investigators claimed Pandya was shot dead in his car, little blood was in the vehicle though his clothes were soaked in blood.

As a member of the SIT in 2010 headed by former CBI director RK Raghavan, YC Modi investigated three of the most important incidence of rioting at Gulberg Society, Naroda Patiya and Naroda Gam. Not surprisingly, he gave a clean chit to the Gujarat government, the Chief Minister and the police.

In 2015, he was posted again to the CBI as Special Director and then moved as DG, NIA when another Narendra Modi favourite, Sharad Kumar, completed his tenure in September, 2017. While the objective was to get a loyalist to head the NIA, the other objective was said to be to make way for Rakesh Asthana as the eventual CBI Director.

Asthana was inducted as Interim Director of CBI after the retirement of Anil Sinha. But he was not eligible for the post then and the government had to appoint Alok Verma as Director. Asthana went back to his post of Additional Director but was made Special Director in October, 2016, overriding Verma’s objections.

The intention to pack all sensitive posts with officers close to them has been the key to the governance model of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. And when Sharad Kumar’s continuance as NIA chief, despite two extensions and a year on contract, became untenable, he was packed off as Vigilance Commissioner to the Central Vigilance Commission. Objections that he was on contract and hence ineligible were overruled. IPS circles claim that Sharad Kumar’s father was a RSS Pracharak for long and that his Haryana home had hosted Narendra Modi on several occasions.

Therefore, now that Rakesh Asthana’s chances of becoming CBI Director are practically over, the ground is being prepared for YC Modi to be brought back to the CBI as Director. And Asthana may get to be rehabilitated in the NIA as the musical chair continues. Who knows?

Nothing short of a purge at the top, feel insiders, can put the derailed investigating agency back on track. After Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister, around 20 senior officers were moved out over a period of time and officers of his choice, many of them from Gujarat, were brought in.

“ It is true that even during the UPA years, we were occasionally told to go soft on some people,” confides a former CBI director before adding, “but it would rarely be anyone in the government, which allowed us some flexibility to say ‘no’.”

The CBI top brass would be told, he recalls, sometimes, “Zara dekh leejiyega” (Please do reconsider the case) or “dekh leejiye, kuch madad ho sakta hai ki nahin” (Please see if you can help in any manner). But during the last four years, CBI officers received orders that they had to follow and also get back with ‘Action Taken Reports’.

While earlier the Joint Director (Policy) would interact with the government and represent CBI at the monthly review meetings with the CVC, in this regime, increasingly, it was Rakesh Asthana, as Additional Director, Interim Director and then as Special Director, who began doing the job.

Asthana, claim insiders, had been told by the PMO that sooner or later he would head the CBI. Therefore, even when he had to step down as Interim Director in favour of Alok Verma, he continued behaving as the de-facto head of the CBI, which Verma resented. Their relations soured and Verma objected in writing when the government sought to promote Asthana as the Special Director and position him as Number two. It was in October, 2016 that Verma wrote to the CVC and informed that the CBI was investigating six charges against Asthana, that he had a bad reputation and that he was hobnobbing with undesirable elements.

It was an extraordinary situation and the charges were grave. But both the Central Vigilance Commission and the Supreme Court chose to ignore the storm clouds and overruled the objections. Not surprisingly, the relationship between the two top officers became frosty since then. It was around this time that both started snooping on each other and collecting evidence.

The Chief Vigilance Commissioner, however, failed to act. “The CVC should have called both of them and bumped their head, asking them to behave,” says the insider. But the CVC appeared to have been paralysed into inaction, clearly abdicating its role. KV Chowdary, the first Revenue Service officer to be the Central Vigilance Commissioner, himself faced a large number of complaints of corruption but a Supreme Court Bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra refused to go into the complaints and dismissed the petition by the NGO, Common Cause, challenging his appointment.

One reason why the CVC was immobilised, claim insiders, is because of ‘interference’ by National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, Ajit K Doval. It was the NSA who stepped in last month and asked the CVC to meet at 9 pm and recommend that both Verma and Asthana be asked to go on leave. It was again the NSA who is said to have directed the Personnel secretary to wait for the notification and he virtually oversaw the ‘midnight coup’ in the CBI from the PMO.

Even this recommendation of the CVC is now mired in controversy as there are reports that while the government claimed the CVC had recommended both Verma and Asthana be sent on forced leave, the actual notice of the CVC as put up on its website initially made no mention of Asthana.

The CBI reports to the DoPT, which is directly under the PMO. But there is no clarity why the NSA should have got involved in the crossfire in the CBI. “Both CVC and the CBI are compromised and a wholesale change is necessary,” say insiders.

Alok Verma is the second CBI Director to have been selected by the committee, comprising the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the Leader of the largest Opposition party in the Lok Sabha. Anil Sinha was the first after the rules were changed in 2013. “There is need for a more robust system if political interference is to be avoided,” said the former director.

He pointed out that both DoPT and the Supreme Court have been sitting over several recommendations made for a more independent and autonomous CBI. Like Draupadi’s five husbands, the CBI too has too many masters: PMO, DoPT, CVC, MHA, Finance and Law, to name a few. In any dispute within the CBI, the final say rests with the Director of Prosecution (DOP) who is appointed by the Law ministry. Unless these procedures are re-calibrated and a more robust system of oversight, perhaps by Parliament, is put in place, the Central Bureau of Investigation is unlikely to fulfil its promise is the consensus.

What is the Supreme Court going to do on November 12 ? Will it give a rap on the knuckles of the CVC and the DoPT? Will it bring back Alok Verma as director?

If the CVC fails to find anything seriously incriminating Alok Verma, lawyers believe, the Supreme Court would obviously order that Verma be given back full charge. If the CVC finds mildly incriminating evidence, conjecture is that the court might order the findings to be placed before the high-level committee which selects the CBI Director. And if the findings are serious, the court could order an independent inquiry while dismissing Verma’s petition.

But then it is not for the Supreme Court to clean the stable. It is for the Government, Parliament and the political class to set the CBI free.

This article first appeared on National Herald on Sunday.