The Supreme Court has restrained senior IPS officer Archana Ramasundaram from discharging her duty as Additional Director of CBI
“We’re informed by A K Ganguly that Ramasundaram has already joined as Additional Director as per the Centre’s May 7 order. Having considered the statutory provision of the DSPE Act with regard to appointment of officers above SP rank, we find that the petitioner has made strong prima facie case that she was not recommended by the selection committee. In the circumstance, we do not find it justifiable for Ramasundaram to continue to function as Additional Director of CBI for the time being. We accordingly restrain the respondent (CBI) from allowing Ramasundaram to function as Additional Director till the next date of hearing,” the bench said in its order.
Ramasundaram, a 1980 batch officer from the Tamil Nadu cadre, had served in the CBI as Deputy Inspector-General and later as its first woman Joint Director and handled cases pertaining to economic offences between 1999 and 2006.
Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran contended that the committee had forwarded just one officer’s name while it was supposed to give a panel of names out of which the government would have selected. He told the court that he would place before it files containing details of procedure by which she was appointed.
The bench posted the case for further hearing on July 14 and made it clear that she would not discharge the function until then.The court passed the order on a petition filed by journalist Vineet Narain, who had submitted that her appointment was arbitrary as the verdict was disregarded.