Next CBI chief: High powered panel zeroes in on 5 names

New Delhi, Feb 02: The Centre is likely to announce the name of next CBI chief soon despite Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, a member of the prime minister-headed selection panel, raising objections to the names proposed during its meeting here Friday, officials said.

During the second meeting of the three-member selection committee, the government is understood to have put forth the names of a few officers who could be considered for the appointment as the CBI Director, they said. However, these names were objected to by Kharge, the officials said.

At the meeting, 30 names were initially shortlisted. In all there were 75 names in contention for the top post. Finally the committee zeroed it down to 5 names. They are Rishi Kumar Shukla, former DGP, Madhya Pradesh, 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.

The development assumes significance as 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.

The post of CBI Director is "sensitive" and "important", and it is not good to keep an interim director of the agency for longer period, the top court observed and sought to know as to why the government has not made the appointment yet.

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.