New Delhi: Andhra Pradesh cadre IPS officer, and Special Secretary, Home, V.S.K. Kaumudi is one of the top contenders for the post of the Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), sources said.
According to sources familiar with the development, Kaumudi, an IPS officer of the 1986 batch who worked as a joint commissioner in Hyderabad and commissioner of police in Vishakapatnam cities, is among the finalized candidates for the post of the CBI chief. The source said that his name can be announced soon.
Kaumudi worked in the Intelligence Security Wing, Economic Offences Wing of CID, Training, Provisioning & Logistics and Welfare wings of the Andhra Pradesh police.
He was also an acting SP to Adilabad and Guntur districts in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh state.
Earlier on Monday, Prime Minister Naremdra Modi chaired a meeting with the Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to select the new CBI chief.
The source said that names of Central Industrial Security Force chief Subodh Jaiswal and Hitesh Chandra Awasthi, a 1985 IPS officer of the UP cadre along others were discussed.
The CBI had got an acting Director in the form of Praveen Sinha after the term of R.K. Shukla ended on February 3 this year.
After the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) chooses the names of at least three or four officers for the CBI Director’s post, they are sent to the Select Committee comprising the Prime Minister, the CJI and the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, which decides the final pick for a fixed term of two years.
According to the guidelines set by the Supreme Court in 2004, officers from the four oldest serving batches of IPS are considered for the top post.
As per the guidelines, officials having experience in anti-corruption investigations or CBI, from the senior-most four batches of IPS cadre, will be empanelled, following which a screening of three officers would be sent to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister.