NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on Wednesday removed the chief of India’s federal investigation agency and his deputy after months of infighting that saw the pair accusing each other of corruption.

Alok Verma, the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and his second-in-command Rakesh Asthana were relieved of duty pending inquiry, the government said in a statement.

Both men had levelled “grave allegations of corr­u­ption” against one another, risking a “potential loss of credibility and reputation” to the agency.

The government took the unusual step of intervening because of “extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances” at the CBI, including Verma refusing to hand over documents as part of a government inquiry into misconduct.

Verma last week laun­ched a bribery investigation into Asthana, accusing him of taking bribes to stymie a probe into an exporter facing charges of money laundering and tax evasion.

Asthana had already accused his boss of taking kickbacks in the same case.

The government, in standing down both men, also quashed Verma’s inquiry into alleged corruption involving his deputy and ordered investigators to stand down.

The head of that unit was transferred to a post in the Andaman Islands — a remote Indian territory in its seas to the east.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2018

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