The curious case of Rakesh Asthana’s exit from the CBI

Exactly a week before three-member selection committee is slated to meet to find and appoint a successor of the virtually deposed CBI Director Alok Verma, his deputy Rakesh Asthana has been eased out of the top investigating agency. His belated exit from the CBI has to be ordered primarily because any new Director who takes over the embattled federal probe agency cannot possibly afford to be overshadowed by a person who had challenged the top boss Verma in the past.

Besides this, the judicial oversight under which the CBI has of late been under fell short of ensuring peace among the warring factions of CBI officers. The three-month-long row that came out in the open in October last year in what is called a midnight coup with the appointment of Nageswara Rao as the interim chief of the CBI has been before the Supreme Court with little result so far other than the self-imposed superannuation of Alok Verma.

Obviously, this not only left the post of CBI Director vacant though for only three weeks, if his forced leave since October alongside that of Asthana is to be foregone, but also quite a few bits wanting in view of the unseemly events that have come to dog the CBI.

The most palpable of these were why no action was taken against Asthana when Verma was offered an alternative post of Director Fire, Home Guards and Civil Defence to remove him from the CBI; or during the time or before the selection committee last met on January 10 though the committee members, or Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Justice AK Sikri and Mallikarjun Kharge, were only looking on that day into the issues related to Verma.

Yet, the fact is that the issues related to both Verma and Asthana had got entwined forcing the Government to send the two on compulsory leave since the night of October 23-24, 2018. Verma had a fixed tenure of two years unlike Asthana. But somehow Government did not think it prudent to shift Asthana to contain the crisis in the CBI that began months ago with both Verma and Asthana trading charges of bribery and corruption against each other. Not only the easier and more logical route to shoot the crisis was missed by the Government but it was also not deemed to be fit to shift Asthana out of the CBI before the meeting of the selection committee was held twice on January 9 and 10 to decide the fate of Verma.

This is how the action against Asthana was delayed. And if reports of his being posted to Bureau of Civil Aviation Security are to be believed, he is, indeed, being treated and rewarded in a far better way than Verma who was offered a posting in somewhat lackluster Fire, Home Guards and Civil Defence. This becomes all the more glaring since Verma is five years senior in Indian Police Service to Asthana. Besides it, Verma has passed his age for superannuation and the new posting was offered to him as a consolation by the Government which he did not accept and, thus, the Government’s right to either punish or reward him was virtually forfeited when it woke up to decide his fate.

Thus, the task of cleansing the CBI that the Government claims to have undertaken got blurred. Its preference of one officer over the other that its detractors have alleged since the early stages of trouble in the CBI obviously continued until  last, or January 17 evening, when Asthana was shown the door out of the CBI. So with both Verma and Asthana being out from the CBI now the Government is expected to be wiser while selecting a new director.

The task for the new man will be clearly cutout and it is to redeem the loss of image and prestige that the main federal investigating agency of the country has of late suffered, courtesy the bickering among its officers though three officers other than Verma and Asthana were also sent out of the agency on January 17.

Since the CBI Director is appointed again under the judicial watch and the Supreme Court has got quite familiar by now about the afflictions that have been threatening the CBI, it is Chief Justice of India who has to show the way and both Government and the Opposition have to think beyond their stakes while appointing a new Director. More so since the new man has to tackle the task to steer the agency clear of the mire it has of late been getting into.