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
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Another North Goa nightclub sealed; Kejriwal says corruption led to fire tragedy
Panaji (PTI): As part of a crackdown against tourist establishments violating laws and safety norms in the aftermath of the Arpora fire tragedy, Goa authorities on Saturday sealed a renowned club at Vagator and revoked the fire department NOC of another club.
Cafe CO2 Goa, located on a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea at Vagator beach in North Goa, was sealed. The move came two days after Goya Club, also in Vagator, was shut down for alleged violations of rules.
Elsewhere, campaigning for local body polls, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal said the fire incident at Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub at Arpora, which claimed 25 lives on December 6, happened because the BJP government in the state was corrupt.
An inspection of Cafe CO2 Goa by a state government-appointed team revealed that the establishment, with a seating capacity of 250, did not possess a no-objection certificate (NOC) of the Fire and Emergency Services Department. The club, which sits atop Ozrant Cliff, also did not have structural stability, the team found.
The Fire and Emergency Services on Saturday also revoked the NOC issued to Diaz Pool Club and Bar at Anjuna as the fire extinguishers installed in the establishment were found to be inadequate, said divisional fire officer Shripad Gawas.
A notice was issued to Nitin Wadhwa, the partner of the club, he said in the order.
Campaigning at Chimbel village near Panaji in support of his party's Zilla Panchayat election candidate, Aam Aadmi Party leader Kejriwal said the nightclub fire at Arpora happened because of the "corruption of the Pramod Sawant-led state government."
"Why this fire incident happened? I read in the newspapers that the nightclub had no occupancy certificate, no building licence, no excise licence, no construction licence or trade licence. The entire club was illegal but still it was going on," he said.
"How could it go on? Couldn't Pramod Sawant or anyone else see it? I was told that hafta (bribe) was being paid," the former Delhi chief minister said.
A person can not work without bribing officials in the coastal state, Kejriwal said, alleging that officers, MLAs and even ministers are accepting bribes.
