Former MP Police chief Rishi Kumar Shukla appointed CBI director

NEW DELHI: Rishi Kumar Shukla, a former DGP of Madhya Pradesh was appointed as the new Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director on Saturday, ending a wait which started with ex-chief, Alok Verma being removed unceremoniously on January 10.

Shukla is an officer of 1983 batch IPS officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre. He has been appointed for a period of two years from the day of assuming office.

The appointment came into controversy soon after, with Congress leader  Mallikarjun Kharge claiming that the government had ignored his dissent note.

Kharge opposed Shukla as the new CBI Director pointing to his lack of experience in anti-corruption investigations, while citing the observation of the Supreme Court in the Vineet Narain judgement, which said, “The Committee shall appoint an IPS officer on the basis of seniority, integrity and experience in the field of Anti-Corruption” read with Section 4A(3)(a) of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, which emphasizes the same.

Kharge said, both the above emphasizes experience in anti-corruption cases only.

However, the criterion decided in the meeting of looking at total experience in investigation and anti-corruption of 100 months, or more had been diluted while picking the new CBI chief.

This, he said, “would be both against the letter and spirit of the SC and DSPE Act.”

IPS Rishi Kumar Shukla who was appointed the new Director, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) pic.twitter.com/Gg0AMJbYbX

— ANI (@ANI) 2 February 2019

Reacting to Kharge’s charge, Jitendra Singh, MoS PMO said, “Whatever is being said by Kharge is totally unfounded and not based on facts."

Singh said, "for the selection of CBI Director, a very objective criteria was followed…It's rather Mr. Kharge who is guilty of trying to have manipulated independent assessment based criteria, in order to accommodate names of his preference.”

Kharge claimed that the senior IPS officers including Javeed Ahmed, Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar and Sudeep Lakhtakia, met the requirement of experience in investigating anti-corruption cases.

Shukla, who joined the undivided police force of MP as additional SP (ASP) Raipur in June 1985 has held several important positions in the MP police, heading Economic Offences Wing (EOW), anti-terror squad (ATS) special task force and the Special Armed Force (SAF) at various points of time. He also served as ADG before assuming charge as DGP of MP on July 1, 2016 under the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government

He is credit with busting of the Chinese SIM BOX enabled parallel telephone exchanges and several SIMI modules.

Reacting to the appointment, Shukla said, he enjoys the good wishes of a lot of people-all to whom he was obliged.

The post of the CBI chief had been lying vacant since January 10 after the unceremonious exit of Alok Verma.

A public feud between Verma and his deputy, Rakesh Asthana hogged the limelight recently as both the officers had accused each other of corruption- which led to their removal from office in a midnight coup. M Nageswara Rao had been working as the interim CBI chief after Verma's ouster.

The meeting held on Friday at the Prime Minister’s residence lasted for over an hour and was attended by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Kharge.