The Central Bureau of Investigation, the country’s premier investigative agency, has been without a regular chief for nearly a month.
Besides, the Centre is yet to appoint a new chief of the Central Reserve Police Force, India’s biggest paramilitary force, whose director-general retired on Sunday.
The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) is also headless since August last year.
Sources in the CBI said the absence of a regular director in the CBI had “severely affected decision making”.
The Centre had appointed Gujarat cadre IPS officer Praveen Sinha, currently the additional director of the CBI, as the agency’s interim chief on February 3, the day regular chief R.K. Shukla’s two-year tenure ended.
“No policy decision is being taken in the absence of the regular director for almost a month. This has severely affected decision making in the agency, which is handling several politically sensitive cases,” a CBI official said.
The CBI is under the administrative control of the department of personnel and training that reports to the Prime Minister’s Office.
Sources said the Centre was yet to call a meeting of the high-powered committee — comprising the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the leader of the largest Opposition in the Lok Sabha — to pick the new CBI director.
“The Centre is still in the process of shortlisting names of the contenders for the post of the next CBI director,” the CBI official said.
The Centre on Friday appointed outgoing CRPF chief A.P. Maheshwari as an adviser to Puducherry’s lieutenant governor, two days before his superannuation from the Indian Police Service.
Maheshwari retired on Sunday.
The Narcotics Control Bureau is also without its regular chief since August last year. In August, the Narendra Modi government had appointed controversial Gujarat cadre IPS officer Rakesh Asthana as the director-general of the Border Security Force. He is also holding the additional charge as the director-general of NCB.
Both the CRPF and NCB report to the Union home ministry.