Who is Rakesh Asthana

He also served as Commissioner of Police in Vadodara and Surat.

The appointment of Rakesh Asthana, the Gujarat cadre IPS officer as a special director in the CBI has raised eyebrows in some quarters. The officer who has investigated high-profile cases such as AgustaWestland is now the second in command in the CBI which is headed by Director Alok Verma.

Asthana is a 1984 batch police service officer. He had headed the special investigation team which probed the burning of Sabarmati Express in Godhra in February 2002. He was also part of the probe team that investigated the fodder scam.

He also served as Commissioner of Police in Vadodara and Surat. In his earlier tenure in the CBI, Asthana had probed Bihar's fodder scam case.

He is currently investigating Lalu Prasad Yadav and family in a hotel deal struck during RJD chief's tenure as the railway minister in the UPA's regime.

He is currently investigating Lalu Prasad Yadav and family in a hotel deal struck during RJD chief's tenure as the railway minister in the UPA's regime.

He was Superintendent of Police in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 1994 and posted in Bihar when he was entrusted with investigating the famous 'chaara ghotala'. The chargesheet was filed in 1996 and he arrested RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav a year later. Asthana was part of the fodder scam investigation till 2001.

His appointment has been questioned by senior advocate, Prashant Bhushan. He said that Rakesh Asthana's name figures in diary of Sterling Biotech, on which CBI itself has registered an FIR. In my view this is totally illegal and we will certainly challenge it, Bhushan also said.

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