No decision on new CBI chief, panel discussed 79 names put in two lists

The meeting of the selection committee to decide on the next chief of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) remained inconclusive, although the panel broadly discussed the 79 names put up before it in two lists — one with 19 names and the other with 60 — because one member of the panel, Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, insisted on getting detailed background information of the officers, people familiar with the development said on the condition of anonymity.

The convention is to consider the four senior-most serving batches of the Indian Police Service (IPS), and there are around 80 officers in the 1982, 1983, 1984, and 1985 batches according to a back-of-the-envelope calculation by HT.

It isn’t clear how the list was further broken up into 19 and 60.

HT learns that the name of the agency’s former special director Rakesh Asthana was in the list of 60. He is now serving as the head of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security.

HT further learns that details of the names on the



shortlist, including their past experience, postings, etc, were not provided and that when Kharge, in the panel by virtue of being the Congress’s leader in the Lok Sabha, pointed this out, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the head of the panel, agreed that this should be made available.

The third member of the panel is Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi.

The panel will meet again, the people cited in the first instance said, perhaps early next week, once the information has been compiled. The Prime Minister agreed that the most suitable person should occupy the post, the people added. The Congress said earlier in this week that it would go strictly by the criteria laid down for selecting the head of the federal investigation agency. It added that it would also ensure that the person selected has not had any truck with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the past.

The list prepared by the government only mentioned basic details such as date of birth, date of appointment in the IPS, batch, and date of retirement.