NEW DELHI: The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has sent CBI director Alok Verma on leave. Verma has been replaced with a junior officer of the rank of Joint Director, M Nageshwar Rao, a senior Joint Director (JD) in the investigating agency, “with immediate effect”.

The CBI Headquarters in New Delhi has been sealed and neither officials nor outsiders are being allowed as a team of officers is inside the building.

The ACC headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ordered that Rao “shall look after duties and functions of Director CBI and shall take over the duties and functions with immediate effect”.

The decision assumes great significance as the government has not handed over the reins of Verma to his deputy, Additional Director A K Sharma. As per available information, Verma and Rakesh Asthana both have been asked to proceed on leave pending inquiry with the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).

The order comes after unprecedented and internal feud between Director CBI and Special Director Rakesh Asthana over a number of charges levelled against each other.

While Asthana has been booked on charges of corruption by the CBI, he has levelled serious charges of official misconduct, corruption against the Director in repeated representations to the government and Central Vigilance Commission.

Additional Director A K Sharma, who is handling the second most significant post in the agency has also been sidelined. It has been alleged that Sharma’s family members were running shell companies in partnership with undesirable contact men and accused booked for bribery by the CBI.

The government had also taken strong exception to the CBI Director openly meeting politicians: Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha and others who had given a complaint seeking registration of an FIR in the Rafale controversy.

As per available information, the government will await the outcome of the legal procedure concerning Asthana who will now have to fight a legal battle against the bribery charges levelled against him.

In a surprising and unprecedented move on October 15, the CBI had booked Asthana for receiving bribe from Sana through middlemen Manoj Prasad and Somesh Prasad. Asthana, a 1984 batch Indian Police Service officer of Gujarat cadre, is accused of accepting a bribe of Rs two crore from a businessman who was under probe in the Qureshi case in order to "wreck" the investigation. The case was being examined by a special investigation team (SIT) headed by Asthana.

The CBI has alleged that bribes were taken at least five times in December 2017 and October this year. The CBI has arrested Devender Kumar, the DySP and investigation officer, alleging that he had fabricated the statement of Sana purportedly claiming that a Rajya Sabha MP had met Verma on his pending case and assured him of relief and a clean chit.

It is alleged that Sana had paid Rs 50 lakh as bribe to Qureshi, which was shown as investment in his company, to get relief in a bribery case. A Special Investigation Team led by Rakesh Asthana was probing the matter and was repeatedly questioning Sana in this regard as it suspected him of lying in the matter.

A lookout notice was also issued against him by the investigation which prevented him from leaving the country on September 25, 2018, Sana had said in his statement which is part of the FIR.

Asthana in his complaint to the Cabinet Secretary on August 24 had alleged that CBI Director Alok Verma had received a bribe of Rs 2 crore from Sana to help him get relief from repeated questioning.

He had also alleged that Verma had called him over phone in February to not call Sana for questioning.