The CBI saga will play on for another two weeks. The Supreme Court of India which was hearing the petition filed by ousted director Alok Verma on Friday asked the Central Vigilance Commission, CVC, to complete within two weeks its inquiry into allegations against Mr Verma. The SC also barred interim director M Nageswara Rao from taking any major policy decision and said decisions taken by him since October 23 to till date shall not be implemented.
The inquiry will be conducted under the supervision of former Supreme Court judge A K Patnaik. With this step, the SC has virtually taken over the functioning of CBI for the next two weeks. Perhaps considering the situation, this was the best decision. While both ruling government and opposition parties are respectively claiming victories interpreting the SC order as their convenience, the fact is that apex court has taken an important decision to clear the mess. The opposition Congress staged protest across the country to try put some kind of pressure on SC to restore the ousted CBI director. The next hearing of case has been fixed on November 16. Hopefully by then a clear picture will be out. But there is no denying that Narendra Modi led BJP government has totally messed up the CBI and has caused immense damage to its reputation. One can only hope that intervention of SC will restore some sanctity in the CBI.