India removes investigative agency head over graft feud

Bloomberg

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has taken the rare step of removing the director of the country’s top federal law enforcement agency and one of his deputies over “grave allegations of corruption.”
Alok Kumar Verma, director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, or CBI, and Rakesh Asthana, a special director at the agency, have been relieved of their roles, the government said in a statement on Wednesday. Both men were accusing the other of corruption.
Modi’s administration appointed CBI official M. Nageshwar Rao as the new director, a decision it said was an “interim measure.”
The administration said it acted given the “extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances,” including the CBI’s Verma failing to furnish documents in an investigation being conducted by the Central Vigilance Commission, which oversees the CBI. The supervisory body said Verma had been “non-cooperative” and had created “willful obstructions in the functioning of the Commission,” the statement said.
Verma contested his removal at the Supreme Court of India. A three-judge panel headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi agreed to an early hearing of his case on Friday.
CBI spokesman Abhishek Dayal did not respond to phone calls or a text message on Wednesday.