Special Director Rakesh Asthana moved out of CBI

New Delhi, Jan 17: Tenure of CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana and three other CBI officers has been curtailed by Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, with immediate effect.

Rakesh Asthana has been moved to Civil Aviation Security. Also, Joint Director Arun Kumar Sharma, MK Sinha and Jayant Naiknavare, have been moved out of CBI.

The tenures of Asthana, Joint Director Arun Kumar Sharma, Deputy Inspector General Manish Kumar Sinha and Superintendent of Police Jayant J Naiknavare have been curtailed, the Personnel Ministry said in an order.

Arun Kumar Sharma, who is considered close to Verma, was also involved in the bitter quarrel between Alok Verma and the sacked CBI chief. Asthana and Sharma are Gujarat-cadre IPS officers. Whereas MK Sinha is a 2000-batch IPS officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre and Naiknavare belongs to 2004-batch Maharashtra cadre.

This comes after Alok Verma was removed as the CBI Director last week by the high-powered selection committee headed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Delhi High Court last week had refused to quash a case of corruption lodged against Asthana and asked the CBI to finish the probe in a time-bound manner. The selection committee is set to meet on January 24 to select the next CBI Director.

(WIth PTI inputs)