Here’s why the top two officials of India’s main investigative agency are fighting with each other

• Rakesh Asthana, the special director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), made a deposition to the Cabinet Secretary last week about the rift between him and Alok Verma, the director of the agency.
• Verma opposed Asthana’s appointment to the No.2 position at the CBI over concerns that he was a person of interest in an investigation into the money laundering practices of Sterling Biotech.
  
• The rift reached breaking point last month when Verma, who was overseas, declined to give Asthana the power to represent him at a meeting of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).

Last week, the conflict between Alok Verma, the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s main investigation agency, and his deputy, special director Rakesh Asthana, escalated yet again. The latter was instructed to inform Pradeep Kumar Sinha, the Cabinet Secretary, of the details of the rift and the progress of certain cases.

The official deposition, which followed an order from the Prime Minister’s Office, came amid complaints that the rift between the two was holding up the CBI’s investigation of a number of politically sensitive cases such as the Vijay Mallya wilful defaulter case and the 2G spectrum allocation issue.

But what exactly are the reasons for this rift?

The primary reason has to do with the appointment of Asthana, a former IPS officer from Gujarat, as the agency’s special director in October 2017. A petition was filed by Common Cause, an NGO, against the appointment, citing his close relations with a firm, Sterling Biotech Ltd, that was the subject of an investigation by the Income Tax Department and CBI for money laundering. Asthana was said to be a person of interest in the case, with suspicion that he had received bribes from the company.

However, the Supreme Court subsequently cleared Asthana’s appointment the following month. It bears mentioning that the central government had also defended Asthana’s appointment, given his track record of heading up a number of important investigations such as the Godhra riots issue and the AgustaWestland scam.

Verma was said to be opposed to Asthana’s appointment, and had reportedly raised objections about the same issue. Concurrently, Asthana was gradually stripped of his responsibility in leading a number of important investigations. However, he made his voice heard on a number of issues, and opposed Verma’s appointment of two senior officials - RP Upadhyay and Rajeev Krishna- who were subsequently disqualified in May by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) , a government body to address corruption and vet appointments to the CBI.

The rift reached breaking point last month. Given that Verma was on a work trip overseas, he missed a meeting of the CVC on July 12th. However, straying from protocol, he did not give Asthana the power to represent him. The meeting was for the induction of certain IPS officers to replace the officials that had been removed from consideration against Verma’s wishes. The CBI told the CVC that Asthana did not have the power to represent Verma since he was under investigation.

Now what?

The Cabinet Secretary is expected to mediate the conflict. Asthana is said to be a favourite of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, so it seems likely that he will maintain his position at the CBI.

At this point, the institutional integrity of the agency has already been compromised. The government will try and prevent the rift from getting further out of hand and hope for a speedy resolution. A number of cases are in the process of being investigated, and given that this is an election year, the resolution of at least a few of them will be necessary.