New Delhi: With the appointment of a new Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director, officials and whistleblowers working in the agency are approaching him without fear of any repercussions and are apprising him of the murky side of the agency.
The 61-year-old Madhya Pradesh cadre IPS officer, Rishi Shukla—who was appointed as CBI director on 2 February—has received more than 50 representations from the agency’s officers, many of which talk about the administrative and financial irregularities taking place within the agency under the protection of senior agency officers.
Last week, a DSP level officer wrote to the CBI director seeking his intervention and registration of FIR against a senior officer of the agency for alleged offences of financial misappropriations and corruption. The complaint was also sent to the National Security Agency (NSA), Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training and the concerned agency officer.
The DSP level officer, who has probed many high profile cases, in his complaint to Shukla, has alleged that A.K. Sharma, who was earlier with the CBI before joining the CRPF in January 2019, Amit Kumar, who is working as a Joint Director in the agency, former CBI Joint Director M.L. Sharma, Prem Gautam who is presently posted as Superintendent of Police with the agency and CBI officer Anuj Arya, had allegedly indulged in irregularities and a proper probe, which includes registering of an FIR, should be done against them.
As per the complaint, five constables of the agency, who are attached with CBI’s International Police Cooperation Unit (IPCU) branch, were getting their salaries despite not attending office and were wrongly being marked as “present”. This was happening, according to the complaint, due to the connivance and protection of senior CBI officers who have been mentioned in the complaint.
The officer has also raised questions on the status of the probe that the agency has undertaken against former CBI officers, including Ranjit Sinha, while alleging that the probes were being “managed”.
Agency officers say that Shukla, who was made the CBI director despite having no prior experience of working in the agency, ignoring the claims of other contenders who had the experience of working in the agency, does not come with the baggage of being either in favour or against any “lobby” in the agency and hence officers are approaching him with an open mind.
The CBI, in the last six months, witnessed massive internal fights between top officers, as a result of which the tenure of many senior officers, including former director Alok Verma, was curtailed by the Central government and a new director was appointed.