CBI director: Second meeting also remains inconclusive

A second meeting of the high-profile selection committee led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi within a week to decide on a full-time director for the CBI on Friday didn't yield any results, officials said.

The January 24 meeting had also remained inconclusive.

Modi and other members of the panel— leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge and Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi— discussed the issue for about 90 minutes.

The CBI is now being led by an interim Director M Nageshwara Rao, whose appointment is also under challenge.

Rao was given charge of the premier agency after the government sacked Alok Verma earlier, two days after Verma was reinstated by the Supreme Court.

Verma's ouster came after he and then Additional Director Rakesh Asthana were locked in a factional feud.

Both were then sent on leave by the government, a move challenged by Verma in Supreme Court. The apex court reinstated him citing procedural issues.

After his sacking from CBI, Verma was named as the director general of fire services, civil defence and home guards but didn't accept the offer and urged the government to consider him as deemed superannuated as he completed 60 years age of superannuation on July 31, 2017.

He took over as the CBI chief on February 1, 2017, for a fixed two-year tenure that ended on Thursday.

The government recently moved Asthana out of the CBI and posted him as the director general of the bureau of civil aviation security (BCAS).