M Nageshwar Rao appointed as interim CBI head, Asthana, Verma sent on leave
New Delhi, Oct 24 (IBNS): Amid internal fight between CBI director Alok Verma and special director Rakesh Asthana, the government on Wednesday appointed M Nageshwar Rao as interim chief of the probe agency, media reports said.
Verma and Asthana have been sent to leave.
Rakesh Astana, who moved the Delhi High court against the bribery case against him by his own organisation bringing to fore an infighting within India's premier federal investigation agency, will not be arrested till Monday.
The court said he will not be arrested till Monday when the case will once again be taken up for hearing.
The matter will be heard at 2 pm on Monday.
Asthana, who is engaged in a turf war against now on leave CBI chief Alok Verma, had sought a direction from the high court that no coercive action be taken against him in the case.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met both the officials even as the Opposition Congress took the opportunity to attack the PM saying the latter used the probe agency for his own political vendetta. Gandhi even dubbed in a tweet Asthana as the PM’s "blue-eyed boy, Gujarat cadre officer, of Godra SIT fame, infiltrated as No. 2 into the CBI".
The CBI on Monday arrested its Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar in connection with a bribery case that laid bare the federal probe agency's internal conflict.
The CBI said Kumar was arrested on charges of falsification of records in an ongoing investigation and said “the role of other officers of SIT (special investigation team) CBI, then supervising the Moin Qureshi case” was also being probed, reported Hindustan Times.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday summoned Alok Verma to discuss the recent conflicts in the agency.
Media reports report said the dispute between CBI chief Alok Verma and his number two Rakesh Asthana "has escalated with the agency filing a bribery case against the latter."
Asthana has in a written statement to the government said a "false FIR (First Information Report)" has been lodged against him", NDTV earlier reported.
Asthana has been named by Satish Sana, a Hyderabad businessman, who was being investigated in a case involving meat exporter Moin Qureshi, arrested in a money laundering case, the report said.
Sana claimed he had to cough up a bribe of Rs. two crores to Rakesh Asthana over a period of over 10-months so that he is not named in the CBI case against Moin Qureshi.
However, Asthana rubbished the charges saying it was hurled against him owing to a conspiracy between the accuser and some CBI and Enforcement Directorate officers.
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