PM Modi-led Selection Committee meet ends, no decision on new CBI chief

The second meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi-headed selection committee ended without any decision on new CBI Director. According to reports, no consensus was achieved over the name of the new chief of the country's premier investigative agency. It is working without a regular director, officials said. 

This was the second meeting of the panel as its January 24 sitting had remained inconclusive.

Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge are the members of the committee. The post of the CBI chief has been lying vacant since January 10 after the unceremonious exit of Alok Verma, who had been engaged in a bitter fight with Gujarat-cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana over corruption charges.

Both Verma and Asthana had accused each other of corruption. Verma, after being removed from the post of CBI director by the PM-led panel, was named as the Director General of Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guards -- a less significant portfolio. 

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court said it was "averse" to the arrangement of an interim CBI Director and the Centre should "immediately" appoint a regular chief of the probe agency.

"We are only saying that you should appoint CBI director immediately. No more of this in-charge business," the bench told the Venugopal, who said the committee is doing it as soon as possible.

The top court was hearing a petition filed by NGO Common Cause challenging the Centre's decision to appoint IPS officer M Nageswara Rao as the interim CBI director.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, told the top court that 40 officers have been transferred from CBI in last two-three weeks.