Alok Verma resignation: CBI vs CVC and the travesty of justice

The “resignation” of Alok Verma, IPS, is in fact a big slap on the face of the government. Among other things, it points to the impossibility of justice under the day’s ruling dispensation. And his exit from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) shuts all the gateways of probity in public life and affairs for one and all. Everything is dependent on the whims and wants of the powers that be.

In fact, the 61-year-old Verma has not resigned in the exact sense of the word as is being generally touted by most television channels. It is no ordinary istifa. Verma has said in his letter dated January 11, 2019 to the Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) that “(he) may be deemed as superannuated”. He has sound reasons to say this.

Quite a few of them spelt out by him in the single-page letter to the DoPT secretary. And the most significant of them is his view about the Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) without taking his name and referring to his office only. The second paragraph of Verma’s four-paragraph letter reads, “The decision made yesterday (January 10) will not just be reflection on my functioning but will become a testimony on how CBI as an institution will be treated by any government through the CVC who is appointed by majority members of the ruling government.”

The CVC, who among other things is supposed to keep a watch over the CBI, is appointed by a panel headed by the Prime Minister which has the Union Home Minister besides the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. Thus, the government of the day can easily have its way with the appointment of the CVC.

This is in sharp contrast to the panel that is tasked with the selection of the CBI director, the post that Verma held till January 11, where the incumbent government is represented by the Prime Minister alone as the Chief Justice of India and the Leader of Opposition are the other two members of the selection panel. What Verma meant is that it is the CVC who should be under the watch of the CBI rather than it being the other way around.

Verma was shunted out on January 10 from the top rank in the CBI to be appointed director of Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards on the basis of the findings of CVC KV Chowdary on a complaint moved against Verma by his former deputy in the CBI, Rakesh Asthana.

Verma said he was not given an opportunity to be heard by the selection panel headed by the Prime Minister before being thrown out of the CBI. The panel met on January 10 evening after the Supreme Court had brought Verma back to the CBI. He was earlier virtually shooed away by being sent away on forced leave at the behest of the CVC only, following which he had to move the top court.

The way the crisis in the CBI has panned out since October last year inevitably fixates one’s attention on CVC Chowdary among others. The top vigilance officer of the country has been in the eye of the storm since the wheels of the system moved for his appointment as CVC in 2015. The step was challenged in the Supreme Court by Common Cause and another organization. Besides this, lawyers like Ram Jethmalani had warned the government and more so the Prime Minister against appointing the 1978 batch Indian Revenue Service officer as CVC.

Among other issues raised against him by Common Cause and lawyers like Prashant Bhushan is his alleged role when he was in, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). They said he had helped cover up the Birla-Sahara papers case where documents were seized in raids by the Income Tax department that showed payment of crores of Rupees to the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, besides other leaders who cut across party divides.

Though the Supreme Court threw out the Birla-Sahara paper case, the role played by Chowdary in underplaying the discovery of these papers in these raids is well documented in a recent book called Loose Pages: Court Cases That Could Have Shaken India by Sourya Majumder and Paranjoy Guha Thakurta.

The two authors had sent detailed questionnaires to the judges and the owners of the two business houses regarding what was dismissed by the apex court as loose papers and published the questions at the end of the book when no replies came till the time of the publication of the book, i.e. until a month ago. It claims that Chowdary, while being among the top guns of the CBDT, did not allow Income Tax department to refer the stunning Birla-Sahara papers to the CBI and Enforcement Directorate though these agencies were expected to investigate and follow up the bizarre entries.

Anyway, the responsibility for the probe against Verma was entrusted by the Supreme Court to the same Chowdary when Verma moved court as an aggrieved officer in October last year. And, thus, this signifies a travesty of justice that has, indeed, taken its toll upon the main investigating agency of the country and not Verma alone.

So it is high time that Prime Minister Narendra Modi comes out with the actual reasons behind shunting out Verma twice from the CBI.