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Onkar Singh in New Delhi
A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court consisting of Justices S P Bharucha, Doraiswamy Raju and Y K Sabharwal turned down on Friday the central government's request to allow it to reduce the tenure of the Central Bureau of Investigation's director to less than two years.
Arguing on behalf of the government, Solicitor General Soli Sorabjee pleaded with the court to allow reduction of tenure for the post. But the judges felt that since the court's order of 1998 in the Vineet Narain case was clear, there was no need to pass a fresh order.
The judgment virtually rules out CBI Special Director P C Sharma from the race for the top post in the agency. Sharma has only one year and two months of service left.
"The judgement is a big setback for Sharma. There is no way the government can consider him now to succeed R K Raghavan," another top officer of the CBI said.
With Sharma out of the reckoning, the favourite for the post now is H J Dora, director general of the Andhra Pradesh police, to succeed Raghavan.
But the CBI officer quipped, "How can you be so sure? There could be a dark horse as well."
That 'dark horse' could be K Chakravarty, Gujarat's police chief, who is senior in rank to Dora.
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