Home Secretary Anil Goswami Asked to Resign
NEW DELHI: India’s Home Secretary Anil Goswami was this evening asked to resign for interfering in CBI functioning, sources said. He has reportedly admitted to making a telephone call to the investigating agency on behalf of a politician arrested in the Saradha chit fund scam.The top bureaucrat has put in his papers.
Earlier today, Anil Goswami was summoned to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office, sources said, after he admitted to Home Minister Rajnath Singh that he called the CBI.
He had been asked to explain reports that he was the official who had tried to stall the arrest of Congress leader and former union minister Matang Sinh. Reports had said that a top official had “tried to influence, even dissuade” the CBI from acting against Mr Sinh.Mr Goswami was to retire in July after a two-year tenure.
Matang Sinh, a former junior home minister, was arrested last week in the Saradha scam in which thousands of small investors in Bengal and Odisha were cheated out of their savings. The CBI alleges that there were large, unexplained transactions worth Rs. 30 crore between Mr Sinh and Saradha which need investigation.
Anil Goswami is the third top official to land in trouble with the government. Last week, the government removed Sujatha Singh as Foreign Secretary, seven months before her retirement, and replaced her with S Jaishankar, the former US envoy.
Earlier this year, top missile scientist Avinash Chander was removed as chief of India’s Defence Research and Development Organization.
