CBI Director Alok Verma's Request for Rafale Papers Tipped the Scale Against Him
Verma, ousted in the early hours of Wednesday morning, has now moved the Supreme Court.
New Delhi: The government’s 2 am decision to oust director Alok Verma as the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation came hot on the heels of not just his request for sanction to arrest an official considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi but also his demand for documentation on the controversial Rafale deal.
Last week, the CBI filed an FIR charging Rakesh Asthana – special director in the CBI and a Gujarat cadre police officer propelled to prominence in the agency by the PMO – with bribery and corruption. Since official sanction from the government is needed to arrest any officer above the rank of joint secretary, Verma had placed a request but permission was not granted.
The Wire has also learned that Verma – who was selected by a high-powered collegium including the Chief of Justice of India for a protected tenure “not less than two years” that ends in January 2019 – was all set to initiate a preliminary enquiry (PE) in to the Modi government’s controversial decision to purchase 36 Rafale aircraft from Dassault Aviation, with a major part of the offset contracts going to an Anil Ambani-led company.
The decision to purchase 36 aircraft in a flyaway condition – in lieu of the originally cleared proposal of buying 18 flyaway fighter jets and manufacturing 108 in India – was taken personally by Modi and announced by him in Paris on April 10, 2015 allegedly without any of the necessary statutory clearances and is now the subject of a criminal complaint to the CBI filed by former BJP ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and lawyer Prashant Bhushan, and also a PIL in the Supreme Court.
While the Supreme Court has asked the government to inform it of the procedures it has followed in the entire aircraft deal, Verma too had moved to ask the Ministry of Defence for some critical Rafale deal documents, authoritative sources have told The Wire.
Verma’s demand for documentation was likely seen by the prime minister and his closest aide in government, national security advisor Ajit Doval, as a dangerous shot across the bow and seems to have been the key trigger for the CBI director’s removal.
The net effect of the prime minister’s action is that the upper echelons of the CBI have been virtually dismantled as all teams have been dissolved and the CBI building sealed with unknown intelligence officials carrying out raids.
Nageshwar Rao, who has replaced Verma as acting director, is the first IG-level official ever to be chief of the CBI. Verma wanted action against him too but the Modi-appointed Chief Vigilance Commissioner, K.V. Chowdhary resisted.
Notionally, the Modi government is claiming to have acted on the advice of the CVC but the move is bound to be challenged at the Supreme Court. Noted lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan confirmed to The Wire that he is moving the apex court, whose orders, he says, the Modi government has flagrantly violated.
While the Modi government’s unofficial spin to the media is that the Centre has acted against both Verma and Asthana, officials familiar with the case insist there is no equivalence between the two. Verma, they say, is the CBI director with a collegium protected tenure who acted with the full backing of the law against his junior for alleged bribery and extortion.
This was never a turf war as is being made out in the media but an outgrowth of the Modi government’s attempts to politicise the functioning of the CBI. As director, Verma insisted on ensuring that extra constitutional authorities did not carry out a political vendetta against rival politicians. Special director Asthana, on the other hand, appeared eager to play out political agendas. When Verma as director resisted, Asthana sought to make this an issue in a complaint to the CVC.
Top CBI officials say Asthana has also acted in ways that have weakened the case against Vijay Mallya, as reported in The Wire.
Sources say Modi,BJP president Amit Shah and Doval were in a huddle from early evening. The result was what is being termed as a ‘coup against the CBI. Top officials say this is the latest example of the “undeclared emergency” – an action unsupported by an law.
courtesy : thewire.in
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Andhra leaders mourn tragic demise of film producer R B Choudary
Amaravati (PTI): Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, his deputy Pawan Kalyan and YSRCP chief Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Wednesday expressed shock and grief over the passing of prominent film producer R B Choudary.
Choudary died in a road accident in Rajasthan on Tuesday.
Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu expressed anguish over the death of Super Good Films head R B Choudary, said an official press release late on Tuesday.
The CM said Choudary had provided opportunities to several actors in over 90 films made in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi languages.
Conveying his sympathies to the family members of the deceased producer, the CM termed his death an "irreparable loss" to the film industry.
Jana Sena chief Pawan Kalyan remarked that the news of the tragic accident left him stunned.
"I cannot believe the news that Choudary met with a fatal road accident in Rajasthan. I pray to God that his soul attains peace," he said.
Former Chief Minister and YSRCP leader Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed grief over the untimely demise of Choudary.
He recalled that Choudary had earned a distinguished place in both the Telugu and Tamil film industries through his contributions as a producer.
Reddy prayed for the departed soul to rest in peace and conveyed his heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family.
