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Supreme Court To Hear Plea Challenging Appointment Of Interim CBI Chief 

Supreme Court agreed to hear a plea by an NGO challenging the appointment of IPS M Nageswara Rao as CBI’s interim chief.

Supreme Court of India (Source: BloombergQuint)
Supreme Court of India (Source: BloombergQuint)

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear next week a plea by a non-government organisation challenging the Jan. 10 order of the government appointing Indian Police Service officer M Nageswara Rao as interim director of the Central Bureau of Investigation.

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 Right to Information Act activist Anjali Bhardwaj, appealed to the bench, also comprising Justices NL Rao and and SK Kaul, to hear the plea this Friday. The Chief Justice of India 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 Jan. 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.