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CBI top boss, deputy like Caesar’s wife, must be beyond suspicion: Arun Jaitley
Finance minister Arun Jaitley was reacting to the Supreme Court order on investigation into CBI chief Alok Verma.
The Supreme Court order to set a 2-week deadline for the probe against CBI director Alok Verma has strengthened the fairness criteria, finance minister Arun Jaitley said, according to news agency ANI.
“They (judges) fixed a time limit and in order to ensure that highest standard of fairness are maintained even in the inquiry they have appointed a retired judge to ensure that the CVC inquiry is extremely fair,” the minister said in the government’s first reaction to the top court’s direction.
A three-judge bench had earlier in the day asked a retired judge to monitor the Central Vigilance Commission’s probe against Alok Verma, who has been stripped of his powers. The Congress interpreted the direction to imply that the court didn’t trust corruption watchdog CVC enough. “You are the sole reason for this trust deficit!,” Randeep Singh Surjewala tweeted, attacking the government.
Jaitley’s intervention is seen to be an effort to correct the perception that government is taking sides in the feud between CBI director Alok Verma and his deputy Rakesh Asthana.
“The government has no interest for or against any individual. The government is interested in maintaining professionalism, image and constitutional integrity of CBI,” Jaitley said.
Jaitley also underlined that recent developments had eroded the credibility of CBI and the CVC had to step in and decide that Alok Verma and Asthana “must step aside and recuse themselves from CBI functioning till inquiry is over”.
“All officers of the CBI particularly the top two officers, like Caesar’s wife, must be beyond suspicion, must be above suspicion. And that is why it is in larger national interest that the truth is established following the highest standards of fairness and due process of law,” he said.
The top court has said that former Supreme Court judge AK Patnaik will oversee the CVC inquiry into allegations against Verma and the report has to be placed before it within two weeks, noting that the matter is of national importance and there should not be any delay.
The retired judge will supervise the CVC inquiry against Verma because of the importance of the case without casting aspersions on any constitutional or statutory authority, the apex court said.
A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph said, “We want to see preliminary probe report in 10 days to decide whether it requires further probe”.
(With PTI inputs)
