Sharma was appointed CBI chief in public interest: Govt

NEW DELHI, Oct 3: In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, the Department of Personnel (DoP) has defended the appointment of R C Sha...

NEW DELHI, Oct 3: In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, the Department of Personnel (DoP) has defended the appointment of R C Sharma as Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The affidavit was filed last week by an under secretary in the ministry in response to a miscellaneous petition filed by Anil Diwan, amicus curiae, during arguments in the case on functioning of the CBI.

In their reply, the DoP has said that the appointment had been cleared at the highest level by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) and was not a `whimsical’ decision. “The qualitative appraisal of an individual’s merits and demerits is within the exclusive domain of the appointing authority and matters like this are within the exclusive domain of the appointing authority and…not within the area of judicial review,” it states.

On the subject of Sharma’s elevation after superannuation, the affidavit cites one more example of an officer on extension having been promoted “in public interest”. An IAS officer, S Gopalan, for instance, was posted as General Secretary in the Lok Sabha Secretariat on a contract basis and was still serving in that capacity.

On the specific charges made by the amicus curiae against the Director, the Government’s reply states that one reason why CBI cases like Bofors, HDW submarine, Airbus 320 and St Kitts had made slow progress was because they involved investigations in foreign shores.

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More