The government on Wednesday cleared the way for the appointment of Meghalaya cadre officer YC Modi as additional director of CBI by moving out present incumbent Archana Ramasundaram.
Top officials in the government told Hindustan Times on condition of anonymity that the order on Modi's appointment is likely to be issued over the next few days.
“The CVC has given vigilance clearance for his appointment and now the appointments committee of the cabinet (ACC) is seized of the matter regarding his appointment,” a top official said.
Ramasundaram, a 1980 batch IPS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre who was appointed in the CBI during the UPA regime, will now be posted as director of national crime records bureau (NCRB).
The choice of YC Modi for the CBI job is viewed with interest, given his past stint in the Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) which probed Narendra Modi in 2002 Gujarat riots cases.
The SIT eventually gave the then-chief minister a clean chit in the Gulbarg society massacre case in which a former Congress MP was among 69 people massacred by rioters.
In the SIT, YC Modi had probed the three most high profile cases -- Naroda Patiya, Narodagaon and Gulbarg Society-- for which trial is underway.
{{/usCountry}}In the SIT, YC Modi had probed the three most high profile cases -- Naroda Patiya, Narodagaon and Gulbarg Society-- for which trial is underway.
{{/usCountry}}Modi was inducted into the SIT by chief RK Raghavan, a former CBI director, who supervised the probe in the Gujarat riots cases.
“YC Modi was inducted into the SIT after the Supreme Court removed two IPS officers of Gujarat from the team. SIT chairman Raghavan was instrumental in bringing YC Modi into the body,” a senior official from Gujarat said.
The top cop also had an earlier stint in the CBI, during which he supervised the probe on the murder of Gujarat BJP leader Haren Pandya, once a rival of Narendra Modi.
In August 2011, the Gujarat high court acquitted 12 persons convicted in the Pandya murder case, slamming the CBI for a “botched up and blinkered investigation.”
"The investigating officers concerned ought to be held accountable for their ineptitude resulting in injustice, huge harassment of many persons concerned and enormous waste of public resources and public time of the courts," a division bench of the HC noted in the judgment.