CBI: A Corruption Scandal And A Destructive Turf War

A corruption scandal, a bitter turf battle between its top functionaries, and an unprecedented purge in its wake have caused irreparable damage to the credibility of the country’s premier investigative agency. Can the CBI and the Modi government recover from this setback?

- Uday Mahurkar With Kaushik Deka

The governmment steeped in with a sledgehammer two days after the internecine warfare between Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director Alok Kumar Verma and his deputy, special director Rakesh Asthana, spilled onto the streets. Both top officers were sent on leave and M. Nageswara Rao was appointed as the acting director. Thirteen senior CBI officers have been transferred across the country, the largest such top-level purge in a central agency in recent years. A.K. Bassi, the officer investigating corruption charges against Asthana, was transferred to faraway Port Blair. The mass action, it now emerges, followed a meeting of Central Vigilance Commissioner K.V. Chowdary and his two vigilance commissioners, who met late on the night of October 23 to take stock of the Asthana-Verma turf war. (The CVC is the CBI’s supervisory agency in anti-corruption cases.) Both the top officials had to step aside for a fair probe, they seem to have decided. The decision was conveyed to the government, which convened a late-night meeting of the Cabinet’s Appointments Committee, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which passed the mass transfer orders.

Although the feud between the top CBI officers was well-known, it turned into open war on October 15 when Verma filed a case of corruption against his deputy and the agency raided its own headquarters to arrest a Deputy SP in a nasty hashtag-grabbing CBI versus CBI battle. The hostilities are set to continue with Verma hitting back through a petition in the Supreme Court challenging his removal. An October 26 hearing by the court will ensure the CBI’s internal woes remain a national embarrassment.