SC to hear next week plea challenging appointment of Nageswara Rao as interim CBI chief

The Supreme Court Wednesday agreed to hear next week a plea by an NGO challenging the January 10 order of the government appointing IPS officer M Nageswara Rao as interim director of the CBI.

The matter was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner NGO Common Cause and RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj, appealed to the bench, also comprising Justices N L Rao and and S K Kaul, to hear the plea this Friday.

The CJI told Bhushan that it was "definitely not possible" to hear the matter on Friday and the plea would be heard next week.

CBI's Additional Director Rao was given the charge of interim chief on January 10 till the appointment of a new director after a high-powered committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi removed Alok Kumar Verma as the chief of the probe agency on charges of corruption and dereliction of duty.