NEW DELHI: For the first time after the Opposition’s dissent, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet withheld the appointment of a new CBI director and extended the tenure of the incumbent chief, Praveen Sood, by one year.
This is the second extension for Sood, a 1986-batch Karnataka cadre IPS officer. In May last year, he was given a one-year extension after no consensus on his successor could be reached.
Officials said the decision to extend his tenure was taken after a meeting of the selection committee chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and attended by the Chief Justice of India and Leader of Opposition on Tuesday night.
“I have written to the PM recording my dissent from the CBI director selection process. I cannot abdicate my constitutional duty by participating in a biased exercise. The Leader of Opposition is not a rubber stamp,” Gandhi said in a post on X after attending a meeting of the high-powered committee. He accused the government of “institutional capture” of the probe agency to target political opponents and journalists.