 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. We are going to discuss today with Paranjay Gautha-Kutta, the CBI versus CBI issue that has come up and the late night purge of the director, the special director, all of whom seem to have been sent out temporarily to pasture. New officer has been appointed. Before we go into the procedural issue which has been raised with this now coming up in the court. How do you read the CBI versus CBI director versus special director, Aalug Varma versus Astana? How do you read this? Praveen, you know, Mad Magazine used to have a cartoon series called spy versus spy. If it only wasn't so deadly serious, we could have laughed at what was going on. Now the thing is never before in the history of the Central Bureau of Investigation have we seen this kind of open infighting allegations of bribery, forgery being leveled by the top two officers in what is supposed to be India's premier investigative agency. Now this throw, I mean this shows the Modi government in very, very poor light. And if you want to go back in time a little bit, you can say the quote unquote original sin happened when Mr. Rakesh Astana was made the interim director. At the time there were also cases against him or at least charges against him regarding the biotech case sterling biotech case where issues had already been raised, cases filed at least public interest litigation, vector solution filed on this common cause. That came soon after he was interim director. But his appointment as special director itself was challenged. Now what has happened? The such top appointments in the CBI are appointed by a panel which is headed by the CBC, the Central Vigilance Commissioner. In this case, Mr. KV Choudhury. Now one important clause is that it should, they should consult the director. And in this case, it was very interesting that Mr. Alok Verma, the director did not approve of Mr. Astana's appointment, but he was nevertheless put in in the number two position. The second point is Mr. Rakesh Astana. It's also, it was said at that time this process went through quote unquote lightning speed. It's absolutely correct. Very, very fast. Super fast. Super fast. Unlike most such appointments. And a little bit about Mr. Astana, you know, he has, he shot into fame when he took the cases against Lalu Prasad Yadav, the fodder scam, the Charakhotala. But he is being perceived as a loyalist of Mr. Narendra Modi. Rahul Gandhi has described him as his blue-eyed boy. But be that as it may, he's been the top police officer in Baroda. He importantly headed the special investigative team appointed by the Gujarat government to investigate the whole Godra episode which resulted in the communal riots in 2002. So charge against him was also that the diaries that were mentioned, the diary that was found which sent what were the payouts, his name appears in the diary of the Sterling biotech case. That's correct. There is a mention of RA and another, where his name is clearly mentioned. And he was at the time, though, I think the police commissioner of Sunath, Baroda, as far as I remember. Okay. So this, of course, there is a question of his son was working in 2010, 2012 in Sterling biotech. The, his, no more importantly, the most serious point is the wedding of his daughter. Of his daughter. That was held in fancy hotels and apparently it was subsequently found out that the bill was taken care of by the same people, the Sandeshara family, who are now absconding. I mean, they are supposed to have run away with some 5,000 crore rupees. Supposedly 8,000 crore rupees. But anyway, 5,000, 8,000, these numbers are so large, it really doesn't make a difference. But if we look at all of this, that after all this was fairly public knowledge that biotech, Sterling biotech was a deep trouble and the charges of serious charges of diversion of funds taken from the banks was already being investigated to have put somebody who was already quote unquote, at least under suspicion, if not tainted by it. That is the number two position, you know, from an analytical position. I mean, if you take an analytical look at it, look at the structural factors. Firstly, what does this entire unseemly episode show? One, you've had excessive centralization of power in the hands of a few. Mr Modi wants to run the administration through only loyal bureaucrats. Three, he is reposing a lot of faith in serving police officers and former police officers like Mr Ajit Doval, the national security officer, who is actually today the most powerful person in the bureaucracy. And on top of all this is coming this whole ugly episode where it is showing up what this kind of factionalism shows. Let's look at three possible or four possible scenarios. Let's assume just for the sake of argument, because what the government is doing is trying to draw what some would call a false equivalence between the director, the and and the Alok Verma and Rakesh Astana, the special director. And Mr Arun Jaitley said, I quote him, the decision to remove the director and the special director was taken to restore the institutional integrity and credibility of the CBI and to maintain the fairness of an impartial probe. Now, what is happening is that both have accused each other of bribery, forgery in the same case. That's a Mohan Kureshi case. But the interesting part is the director had said there are six corrupt corruption cases against Mr Astana, which are pending and probes are on. Two of them are relating to the sterling biotech. Two of them relating to Mohan Kureshi. After which Astana made the charge against Alok Verma. Absolutely. That Mohan Kureshi case involves him as well. Absolutely, because both are allegedly taking bribes to fix the investigation and extorting. Let's look at four possible scenarios. Scenario one, both Mr Astana and Mr Verma are squeaky clean, honest, incorruptible police officers. This is very, very charitable view. Nevertheless, despite them being supposedly honest, they are still going at each other. So, is it not going beyond factional rivalry, ego clashes, you know, turf wars? Scenario two and three could be that one of them is corrupt and the other is not. Mr Astana is not corrupt. Mr Verma is corrupt. Or vice versa, Mr Verma is not corrupt. Either way, you're still levelling allegations at each other. Or let's assume that both are not above board. What does this mean? That here is India's premier police investigating agency, which is going to turn 55 years in a few months from now. Is it that this bunch, it's being run by a bunch of crooks, the same people who are supposed to take on the high and the mighty and expose corruption and high places, they are supposed to be charging and prosecuting the corrupt no matter how powerful and important. I mean, what does this show? What a terrible situation that we are in today. So from watchdog to staged parrot, now we have, what shall we say? A complete collapse. Probably at one point, I just want to highlight. This is not the first time that CBI officers have been put behind bars or accused of corruption. This is not the first time that we've had these internal factionalism happening. What exactly is new? Remember, this is the first time that the CBI itself is investigating two of its former directors, AP Singh in the Mohen Kureshiu case and Ranjit Sinha in Colgate, 2G, etc., etc. Now, over and above this, now you're having these two individuals, top two individuals, levelling these ugly charges of corruption against each other. I mean, if this is not institutional collapse, what is? One other point, which I think you need to know. At 1.45 a.m., this entire quote-unquote coup was, according to a number of reports, been masterminded by Mr. Ajit Doval, according to NDTV certainly, and the person who's now in charge, Mr. Nageshwar Rao, was summoned at 2 o'clock. The offices of Mr. Asthana and Mr. Alok Verma were sealed. Orders were issued, and it's important to note that the very same people who were supposed to be investigating Mr. Asthana in the first information report case, they've been all shunted out. One of them, Mr. A.K. Basi, is now in Port Blair. He has immediately, he has to go immediately to Port Blair. And interestingly, it has been said that these transfers with immediate effect are being done in the public interest, quote-unquote public interest. Well, it's interesting because we shouldn't say it today, but Andaman's was to be in the original Kala Pani. So the fact that, and interestingly enough, Mr. Basi is happy, he should be happy, he's out of the polluted Delhi going to a clean up place. You know, the other part of it which worries me is, as you talked about the wholesale transfer of the officers and so on, those who are investigating cases which are crucial. So Mr. Asthana, he was investigating the Malia case, for example. But leaving all of that out, there are also procedures on the which you take actions against the CBI director. They also seem, though not seem to have been followed, at least we'll see with interest what the court case which Mr. Verma has filed today. All right. We'll have to wait and watch to see how the Supreme Court, perhaps as early as Friday, will decide whether or not the law was violated. Because if you will recall, after the Vinit Narayan versus Union of India case, what was very, very clear and subsequently made over and about, it was emphasized that the CBI director has a fixed term of two years. Now what is the Ministry of Home Affairs saying? In a statement, what we are now seeing is they are saying, Mr. Verma was allegedly not cooperating with his boss, who is the Central Vigilance Commissioner, allegedly. Now we don't know the truth. If news reports are to be believed, what the opposition is claiming, the government was worried that Mr. Verma may start looking into the referral case. And according if Rohini Singh's article in The Wire is to be believed, apparently there were very, very telephone transcripts which could possibly implicate some very, very important people. All these are suggestions, all these are allegations. As Shaury has raised this issue, the government was very unhappy that their complaint was listened to by the director. And that one of the reasons of this, shall we say, breakout of hostilities within the House of CBI was a consequence of this. So of course, we don't have as of date information regarding that, but it's a possibility. Praveen, you know, this is not the first time that whoever has been in power, the ruling regime has used the CBI to settle political scores, to go after political rivals. But I think never before, in the nearly 55 year long history of the CBI, have we seen this being done in such a reason and blatant manner. And I think this is going to be a very, very defining moment in the history of the CBI and the manner in which this organization functions in the foreseeable future. I think my own personal view is that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not going to be able to live down the mess in the CBI and, for all you know, might get into an even deeper mess because as soon as you sort of try and protect people who you perceive are loyal to you, you could land up in bigger and bigger problems. And the institutional crisis can then only go. Thank you for being with us. We'll continue to watch the CBI developments, particularly also the institutional arrangement under which the CBI functions, its lack of autonomy and the clear interference that can happen by the political administration and running of the CBI. A very crucial instrument in the India's, shall we say attempt to keep itself clean, at least in terms of its administration. This is all the time we have for NewsClick today. Do keep watching NewsClick and visit our website.