New Delhi: The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to hear next week a plea by an NGO challenging the January 10 order of the government appointing IPS officer M Nageswara Rao as interim director of the CBI.
The matter was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner NGO ‘Common Cause’ and RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj, appealed to the bench, also comprising Justices LN Rao and SK Kaul, to hear the plea this Friday.
The CJI told Bhushan that it was ‘definitely not possible’ to hear the matter Friday and the plea would be heard next week.
CBI’s additional director Rao was given the charge of interim chief till the appointment of a new director after a high-powered committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed Alok Kumar Verma as the chief of the probe agency on charges of corruption and dereliction of duty.
The petition has sought laying down of specific mechanisms to ensure transparency in the process of appointment of CBI director.
It has alleged that Rao’s appointment was not made on the basis of recommendations of the high-powered selection committee, comprising Prime Minister, leader of the single largest opposition party Mallikarjun Kharge of the Congress and CJI or a judge of the apex court nominated by him.
The plea stated that the order of October 23 last year appointing Rao as the interim CBI director was quashed by the top court January 8 but the government has ‘acted in a completely mala fide, arbitrary and illegal manner’ to appoint him again in ‘complete contravention’ of the DSPE Act.
PTI
