Will CBI see ‘achhe din’ or will it continue to be ‘his master’s voice’? 

When you wash your dirty linen in public this is bound to happen. The way the number one officer and number two in CBI have been fighting, the tumbling out of secrets was in the offing. CBI Director Alok Verma and Special Director Rakesh Asthana were relieved of their duties and Joint director Nageshwar Rao took over as an interim head of CBI.

Ironically, the interim head of CBI Nageshwar Rao has also been accused of misappropriation of funds in the purchase of uniforms for fire service personnel.

What began as a power tussle ended with no power to both the Director and Special Director. What is surprising is that all the three top officers — CBI Director Alok Verma, Special Director Rakesh Asthana, Joint Director (Policy) AK Sharma— are considered close to the current ruling dispensation.

Alok Verma’s appointment as the director was intentionally delayed by the Centre in 2017 for more than a month because Chief Justice Khehar was set to retire and Modi government was of the view that with Justice Khehar in the CJI seat, the government may find itself in a quandary if the CJI and the leader of the Opposition agreed. The Prime Minister, the Chief Justice and the leader of the Opposition are part of a high-powered committee which appoints the CBI Director. During this period the Opposition leader was Mallikarjun Kharge.

In that intervening period, between Anil Sinha’s retirement and Rakesh Asthana, who is considered to be Modi’s blue-eyed man, was appointed as interim director. He is an IPS officer from Gujarat cadre from 1984 batch and he headed the SIT formed to look into the Godhra riots.

Even while appointing Alok Verma as the director of CBI, the established precedence was not taken into consideration. Usually, those who are appointed as CBI directors have some experience of working in the CBI. According to to rules, anyone who has worked in an Anti-Corruption wing or Vigilance department can become the CBI Director. Alok Verma has worked with the Vigilance department under Delhi Police.

It is also a known fact that Rakesh Asthana was a blue-eyed officer of the Prime Minister Modi when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat and he is also considered to be close to BJP President Amit Shah.

“Asthana, who is considered close to BJP president Amit Shah, was made a special director of  the CBI despite the director’s objection as he was being investigated by the agency in the Sterling Biotech money laundering case,” tweeted senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan. It was because of this closeness that he was transferred to Delhi. Asthana was not only a Gujarat cadre IPS officer but he headed the very sensitive SIT formed to probe Godhra riots. He was handed crucial cases of Lalu Yadav, Mallya and Moeen Qureshi.

When Asthana was made the special director in CBI, it was assumed that he would be the Director of CBI after Alok Verma. But, currently his chances look bleak as he is unlikely to get a clean chit in the current case immediately and the next CBI Director will have to appointed in January 2019 as Alok Verma will retire on January 9, 2019.

According to sources, the feud started when Alok Verma wanted to fill vacancies of Joint Directors and he wanted a few officers close to him. Alok Verma sent the proposal to Central Government and the proposal was rejected under the pretense of government lacuna. None of these officers were rejected nor were they considered by the Central government.

This triggered the tension between the number 1 and number 2 in the CBI as it is believed that Asthana played a major role in the Modi government rejecting Verma’s proposals.

When Asthana was being considered for DG empanelment of 1984 batch candidates, Alok Verma said to the CVC that Asthana’s promotion should not be considered as there were complaints against him in the Sandesara money laundering case.

And then the tussle between the two become public. Additionally, Alok Verma intensified his search to establish Asthana’s Sandesara links. The investigating officers were probing into the lavish wedding of his daughter in Vadodara. The agency has questioned close to a dozen people and received replies from at least four hotels on expenses made and facilities provided.

Last October, the agency booked Sterling Biotech, its directors Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Sandesara, Rajbhushan Omprakash Dixit, Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara and Vilas Joshi, chartered accountant Hemant Hathi, former director of Andhra Bank Anup Garg and a few other unidentified persons. The CBI has alleged that the company had taken loans of over ₹5,000 crore from a consortium led by Andhra Bank and later turned them into non-performing assets. The FIR alleged that the total pending dues of the group companies came up to ₹5,383 crore as on December 31, 2016.

Once when Alok Verma was on a foreign trip, the CVC convened a meeting to induct some officers in CBI and it was said that since Alok Verma was out of country, this could be done with the presence of the second officer Rakesh Asthana. The process began, but on his return, Alok Verma asked his Joint Director Policy (JDP) AK Sharma to write to CVC that no important appointment in the CBI could be done in absence of the Director and that the CVC should have waited for the Director to return. In the letter, it was also added that the Special director Rakesh Asthana, who is the second most senior officer in the agency, could not represent director Alok Verma in matters pertaining to “inducting officers into CBI” as Asthana himself was “under (the) scanner”.

Another blue-eyed officer of the ruling dispensation is JDP AK Sharma who is also a Gujarat cadre IPS officer and is considered close to Alok Verma. It must be remembered that in the CBI, the Director and JDP are considered to be the most important, more important than any special director. Even when the PMO calls for a meeting, it’s only the CBI Director and JDP who are called.

Realising that his case was slipping, Rakesh Asthana complained to cabinet secretary and CVC in August about the investigation against him and the harrasment his family was facing in this case. He went on to charge Alok Verma for taking bribe in the Moin Qureshi case.

Moin Qureshi was raided by the Income Tax department in 2014 and his messages with former CBI director AP Singh had led to Singh's resignation as member of the Union Public Services Commission. In 2017, the CBI had registered a case and this was one of the many major cases being handled by Asthana.

On October 3, Sana Satish had named Asthana before the Magistrate. He claimed that he was being harassed by CBI officers to pay more bribe. He also revealed how ₹3 crore had been paid over a period of 10 months from December 2017.

The agency in a formal statement said: “The matter relates to the creation of a statement under section 161 (Criminal Procedure Code) of Shri Sathish Sana, a witness in Moin Qureshi case, showing it to be recorded on September 26, 2018, at Delhi. During the investigation, it has been found that Shri Sana was not present in Delhi on that day and was in Hyderabad. Shri Sana actually joined investigation at Delhi on October 1.”

When his statement was recorded on October 3 in Delhi he never mentioned ₹ 5 crore. According to sources, Asthana was arrested because of this fabricated statement. This proved that Rakesh Asthana who was heading that probe and DSP Devendra Kumar was was the investigating officer in this case were hand in glove. With this the noose tightened around Asthana.

Now with number one and two of CBI relieved of their duties, would there be ‘acche din’ for CBI or it would it continue to be his master’s voice?