The NGO Common Cause on Thursday petitioned the Supreme Court seeking a special investigation team on the corruption charges against benched CBI special director Rakesh Asthana, sacking of the officer and quashing of M. Nageshwar Rao’s appointment as interim CBI director.

The bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and K.M. Joseph will on Friday take up the petitions filed by the benched CBI director Alok Verma, who has challenged his removal, and Common Cause.

Verma’s petition is listed as item No. 41 on the agenda, and the Common Cause petition as No. 42. Verma’s plea is expected to come up for hearing around noon.

Common Cause claims the government removed Verma because he had on October 10 met the NGO’s counsel Prashant Bhushan and some others and received from them a 132-page complaint relating to the Rafale deal. The complaint sought the registration of an FIR and an investigation into the deal.

Verma and Asthana, his deputy, have both been sent on forced leave after their public feuding culminated in the CBI filing a corruption FIR against Asthana --- believed to be close to Modi --- and arresting one of his aides. Rao is Verma’s interim replacement.

The Congress has alleged that the Narendra Modi government removed Verma to pre-empt probes into corruption cases, specifically the politically sensitive Rafale aircraft deal.

Common Cause’s petition, filed through Bhushan, alleges the decision to send Verma on leave and bring in Rao despite the latter’s “tainted” record exposes “how the government through its brazen interference has attempted to subvert the premier investigating institution of this country”.

Without elaborating, the petition says a recent “online investigation report published on www.savukkyonline.com enumerates various lapses and instances of unprofessional conduct on the part of Mr Nageshwar Rao which merits further investigation”.

It says that according to the report, Verma had ordered a discreet inquiry against Rao when the latter was CBI joint director for the agency’s Chennai zone, and had ordered the transfer of important cases out of the Chennai zone.

It has sought the quashing of the October 23 Central Vigilance Commission order though which Verma has been “illegally divested of all the work related to the director, CBI, for mala fide reasons”.

It also seeks the quashing of the order issued on the same day by the appointments committee of the cabinet, handing over to Rao, a joint director, the responsibilities of the director “in gross violation of the law regarding selection of the director, CBI”.

The petition also seeks a direction for the sacking of Asthana in the light of the corruption cases against him.

It seeks a special investigation team (SIT) that will probe the events of the past few days and corruption charges against senior CBI officials and submit a report to the top court.