Congress opposes Rishi Kumar Shukla's appointment as CBI director; Govt hits back

New Delhi, Feb 2: Senior Congress leader and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge has opposed the appointment of Rishi Kumar Shukla as the new CBI director. In a dissent note to the Prime Minister, Kharge cited Shukla's lack of experience in anti-corruption investigations as the reason for his objection.

Rishi Kumar Shukla was earlier today appointed as the new chief of the Central Bureau of Investigation. A high powered committee, which met in Delhi today, appointed IPS officer Shukla as the new CBI director. Shukla is the former DGP of Madhya Pradesh and was chosen by the panel comprising the Prime Minister, Leader of Opposition and Chief Justice of India. He will head the CBI for a period of two years.

Reacting to Kharge's objection, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said a very objective criteria was followed to select the CBI Director.

"Whatever is being said by him is totally unfounded and not based on facts. For the selection of CBI Director, a very objective criteria was followed...It's rather Mr. Kharge who is guilty of trying to have manipulated independent assessment based criteria, in order to accommodate names of his preference," Singh told ANI.

In all there were 75 names, but during the meeting on Friday, the list was brought down to five. Shukla's name featured along with that of R R Bhatnagar, CRPF chief, Sudeep Lakhtakia, NSG chief, Javeed Ahmed, National Institute of Criminology and Forensic Sciences director and A P Maheshwari, BPR&D chief.

According to reports, Kharge wanted Javed Ahmed as the CBI chief.

Shukla is a 1983 batch Indian Police Service officer. He was previously the Director General of the Madhya Pradesh police. Prior to that, he headed the state police housing corporation.

The post of the CBI chief had 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.