Bombay High Court seeks response from Central government in plea to remove Subodh Kumar Jaiswal from CBI Director post

The Bombay High Court on Thursday issued notice to the Central government in a plea seeking quashing of the appointment of Subodh Kumar Jaiswal as Director General of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) [Rajendrakumar V Trivedi v. Union of India & Ors.]..A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipankar Datta asked the government to file its reply by July 18 and listed the matter for hearing on July 28..Jaiswal, who is a 1985 batch IPS officer, was appointed CBI Director on May 25, 2021.The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet had approved the appointment based on the recommendation of the three-member panel of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Justice of India, NV Ramana and Leader of Opposition Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.Jaiswal was serving as the Director General of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) at the time of his appointment as CBI Director. He had earlier served as Director General of Police, Maharashtra.He has a tenure of two years as CBI chief..The petitioner before the High Court Rajendrakumar Trivedi, a retired Assistant Commissioner of Police force in Maharashtra, has challenged continuation of Jaiswal as CBI chief on the ground that he does not possess experience in investigation of anti-corruption cases and has doubtful credibility.In his plea filed through law firm Talekar and Associates, Trivedi highlighted the provisions of Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) Act which provide for the eligibility criteria and mechanism for appointment of CBI Director.As per the same, an officer who is to be appointed as Director, has to be the senior-most IPS officer having experience in the investigation of anti-corruption cases with impeccable credibility.The plea stated that the appointment of Jaiswal as Director was contrary to the mandate under the CVC Act.He questioned Jaiswal's authority on the ground that he had no experience investigating anti-corruption cases.He submitted that Jaiswal's credibility was doubtful for the reason that when Jaiswal was heading a special investigation committee for investigating the scam of fake and counterfeit stamps involving several police officials including senior IPS officer Param Bir Singh, there were allegations against the committee and the investigation came to be transferred to CBI.The role and involvement of Jaiswal in the entire scam of fake and counterfeit stamps was also noted by the Supreme Court in its order granting bail to one of the accused in the Telgi scam case.The appointment committee in charge of appointing the Director was not informed about the top court's observations, the plea said.The petitioner further claimed that Jaiswal always misused his position to subdue his subordinates and the petitioner too was victimised in the past for raising voice against the illegalities committed by him from time to time.The petitioner was transferred to an inconvenient post midterm at the behest of Jaiswal which was ultimately quashed and set aside by the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal (MAT).Jaiswal also purportedly initiated departmental inquiry against Trivedi with a view to silence him."With such an officer being at the helm of the affairs of a premier institution, would not only cause grave prejudice to the investigations of serious offences among others involving national security and sovereignty but would defeat the trust of the general public entrusted upon it," the plea underscored.The plea, therefore, sought the following prayers:To call for record and proceedings regarding appointment of Jaiswal;To issue a writ of quo warranto show under what authority he is holding the post of Director of CBI;To quash the appointment of Jaiswal.