Janjivan Bureau / New Delhi: In a first official reaction on the ongoing feud between two top functionaries of India’s premier investigative agency CBI, the government on Wednesday said it stepped into it to ensure the institutional integrity of the organisation and save it from becoming an object of mockery.
Briefing media here after the meeting of the Union Cabinet, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, while defending the government decision to ask the two feuding officers–CBI Director Alok Verma and his deputy Rakesh Asthana–to proceed on leave, said it was done on the recommendations of the Chief Vigilance Commission (CVC), which had the power of superintendence under Section 4(1) of the Act in relation to the investigation.
“The CBI is a premier investigation agency, which need to maintain its institutional integrity and thus it is the pre-condition that fairness and honesty are maintained. We could not have afforded a situation where those who are accused and have gone outside India could raise fingers at the institutional integrity of the CBI,” Jaitley said.
Noting that both the CBI director and his deputy in the agency had levelled allegations against each other, the Minister said the government on the recommendation of the CVC had decided to constitute an SIT to investigate the matter.
“When, how and who will form the SIT will be decided by the CVC and since neither of them can investigate charges against each other, both have been asked to sit out as an interim measure. They have also been asked to offer themselves in the investigation,” Jaitley said, adding that it is “an extraordinary situation and the SIT will not function under either of the two”.
Rebutting the opposition charges of the government indulging in the investigative affairs of the agency, which was supposed to investigate allegations with regard to BJP president Amit Shah, Jaitley said, “It is utterly rubbish and the allegations cast serious doubts on whether the opposition has access to what was going on in the minds of officers in the CBI.”
Insisting that the government would not pre-judge anything in the ongoing affairs, the Finance Minister said, “We are committed to ensuring institutional integrity so that the agency does not become an object of mockery.”
