Justice AK Sikri is CJI Ranjan Gogoi's nominee on panel

NEW DELHI: Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on Wednesday named Justice AK Sikri as his nominee to the highpower panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi which will examine if the government can send CBI chief Alok Verma on leave.

CJI Gogoi, who could be part of the panel or send a nominee, seems to have opted for the latter as he had dealt with the judicial side of Verma’s challenge to his removal bypassing the panel. The government had maintained that it would have to take prior clearance from the selection committee only if it wanted to transfer the CBI chief before his mandatory minimum period of two years in office.

But in Verma’s case, the government claimed that it had to send him on leave as an interim measure while the CVC completed a probe into the allegations against him to check any damage to the institution’s credibility caused by the public fight between Verma and his deputy Rakesh Asthana.


“They fought in public like Kilkenny cats,” AG KK Venugopal had famously said in court. Verma had accused the government of shunting him out over a probe he had initiated against Asthana, a Gujarat cadre officer who was brought in as his number 2.