Centre extends CBI Director Praveen Sood's tenure by one year

New Delhi, May 7 (PTI) The Centre on Wednesday extended CBI Director Praveen Sood's tenure by a year, the first such extension that came after a new law gave the government the power to extend the federal agency chief's tenure to up to a maximum of five years.

Sood took over as the CBI chief on May 25, 2023 for a two-year term.

The decision to extend his tenure was taken in a meeting of the selection committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Monday, officials said.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), based on the recommendations of the selection committee, approved Sood's extension for a period of one year beyond May 24, an order issued by the Personnel Ministry said.

The extension comes three years after the Centre amended the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, 1946, which governs the functioning of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The Parliament had on December 14, 2021 passed the DSPE (Amendment) Bill, 2021 to extend the tenure of the CBI director to a maximum of five years. It became the law after receiving the president's assent on December 18, 2021.

The new law allows the government to extend the CBI director's tenure "in public interest" on the recommendation of the selection committee "up to one year at a time".

However, "no such extension shall be granted after the completion of a period of five years in total including the period mentioned in the initial appointment", it says.

The Supreme Court in its 1997 verdict in the Vineet Narain versus Union of India case had issued a specific order that the CBI director shall have a minimum tenure of two years.

Former CBI director R K Raghavan was the first to have been appointed for a fixed two-year tenure. He took over as the head of the federal probe agency on January 4, 1999. Incidentally, his two-year term was extended beyond the initial two-year term up to his date of superannuation, that is April 30, 2001, the officials said.

Similarly, the two-year terms of the then CBI directors Vijay Shankar (from December 12, 2005 to July 31, 2008) and Ashwani Kumar (from August 2, 2008 to November 30, 2010) were also extended up to the date of their superannuation.

Incumbent CBI chief Sood is a 1986-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the Karnataka cadre. He was posted as Karnataka's director general of police (DGP) when he was named as the CBI director.

Born in Himachal Pradesh's Kangra district in 1964, he joined the IPS at the age of 22 years after completing his civil engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Sood, known for his hands-on approach, had supervised the investigation of high-profile cases involving high net-worth individuals and matters having inter-state and international ramifications. PTI AKV AKV KSS KSS