New Delhi: Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that the government should make documents public related to the decision on Alok Verma’s exit “so that the public can draw its own conclusions”.
Kharge termed the appointment of M Nageswara Rao as the CBI's interim director "illegal" and demanded a meeting of the selection committee be convened immediately to appoint a new chief of the probe agency.
"Actions of the government indicate that it's scared of a CBI headed by an independent director," Kharge wrote in his letter to PM Modi. He also demanded that the government come clean on the issues and make public the CVC report, Justice A K Patnaik's report and minutes of the January 10 meeting.
"Despite my best efforts to convince the members of the committee that we should be following the due process of law and the principles of natural justice, the members chose to take a decision based on the report that now stands disowned by Justice Patnaik," Kharge has said in his letter to PM Modi.
Justice Patnaik, the former Supreme Court judge who supervised the CVC inquiry against Verma, had said that no “allegations of corruption” were made against the former CBI chief by a witness, as had been claimed by his deputy Rakesh Asthana.
Kharge said it was unfortunate that the "manipulative actions of the government" were directly responsible for causing "deep embarrassment to the judiciary", adding that a Supreme Court judge had been forced to defend the decision.
Kharge represented the opposition in the three-member panel, in which the votes of PM Modi and Justice AK Sikri decided Verma’s removal as CBI Director. PM Modi and Justice Sikri had voted to remove Verma, Kharge opposed the decision.
(With PTI inputs)
