SC to hear plea challenging Rakesh Asthana’s appointment as Delhi Police top cop

New Delhi, Aug 02: The Supreme Court will on Thursday hear a petition challenging the appointment of Rakesh Asthana as the Delhi Police Commissioner.

The top court was hearing a plea by a lawyer seeking contempt action against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah for the Centre's decision to appoint Rakesh Asthana as the Delhi Police commissioner days before his retirement date.

This is one of the very few instances when an IPS officer outside of the AGMUT cadre has been appointed as the Delhi Police chief.

Usually, an officer belonging to the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre is appointed to the post.

Asthana had earlier served as the Special Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

During his stint in the CBI in 2018, he was engaged in an unsavoury spat with the then CBI Director Alok Verma with both of them levelling allegations of corruption against each other.

Both the officers were later removed from the central probe agency by the Union government and Asthana was subsequently cleared of the charges.