CBI Addl Dir Nageswar Rao shunted out
New Delhi: One of the most powerful additional directors of the CBI, Nageswar Rao, was on Friday transferred out of the central probe agency and appointed as Director General of Fire Services, Civil Defence and Home Guard.
As per Rao's transfer order, the post of DG fire services will be "temporarily downgraded" to the level of additional director so that Rao, a 1986-batch IPS officer, can take charge. He is to remain with the fire services till his superannuation on July 31, 2020, or ordered otherwise.
Interestingly, when former CBI Director Alok Verma was moved out of the probe agency, he was also posted as DG-Fire Services, but refused to take charge.
Rao was the interim Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation when the CBI vs CBI kerfuffle had reached its peak. Soon after assuming charge as the head of the CBI, Rao had cleared the transfer orders of officers probing charges of corruption against former Special Director Rakesh Asthana.
After a Supreme Court directive reinstated Verma earlier this year, he had rescinded the 11 transfer orders and added five new charges, the following day, amidst speculations that he was consolidating his loyalists to probe Asthana.
Furthermore, Rao's name had come up when the CBI had upped its ante in going after former Kolkata top-cop Rajeev Kumar.
While earlier this year, the probe agency was looking for custodial interrogation of Kumar for his alleged connection with evidence tampering in the Saradha chit fund case, Kumar had alleged that the CBI's action against him was coming on Rao's orders.
Kumar had cried foul, saying the Rao was going after him because Kolkata Police was investigating a demonetisation case where Rao's wife and daughter's names had come up.
The Kolkata Police had reportedly initiated an investigation into some shell companies that had received huge cash deposits following demonetisation.
Names of Rao's family members had allegedly surfaced when Kolkata Police was looking into one Angel Mercantiles for allegedly collecting money from public unauthorisedly.
