Meet Praveen Sood, the CBI chief-in-waiting

Sood’s name was cleared on Saturday by a high level committee meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury from among three shortlisted by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet.

An officer from the Indian Police Service (IPS) 1986 batch of the Karnataka cadre, Sood, 59, is currently posted as Karnataka’s Director General of Police, and is the senior-most IPS officer after Jaiswal. He is the third IPS officer from the cadre to head the CBI, after Joginder Singh and D R Karthikeyan.

Hailing from Kangra in Himachal Pradesh, Sood is an alumnus of IIT-Delhi, IIM-Bangalore and Syracuse University in New York. He joined the IPS at the age of 22 and was posted initially as the assistant superintendent of police in Mysore, in 1989.

He served as the Commissioner of Police in Bengaluru and is credited with setting up the 'Namma 100' emergency response system for people in distress.

A highly-decorated officer, Sood was awarded the Chief Minister's Gold Medal for Excellence in Service in 1996, the Police Medal for Meritorious Service in 2002, and the President's Police Medal for Distinguished Service in 2011, to name a few.

Behind The Scenes

According to sources, Congress party’s Chowdhury gave a dissent note citing that Sood was not even empanelled to be the DG at the centre.

Normally, only empanelled officers are appointed to serve in the central government. The process involves thorough checks on the officers’ personal and professional records to ascertain integrity and competency.

However, since a high-powered panel, not the government, appoints the CBI director, the empanelment norm is not strictly applicable.

Meanwhile, it has been learnt that even though the central government was keen to grant a one-year extension to the incumbent Jaiswal, it finally decided to opt for the new appointment. What transpired during the meeting to discuss the proposal for Jaiswal’s extension is still not publicly known.

Sources said that Sood was not the first choice for the coveted position as he had neither worked with the central government nor any federal agency.

The government was keen about the National Investigation Agency Director Dinkar Gupta, whose name probably got knocked off due to seniority, as he is from the 1987 IPS batch.

Sood made headlines in March when the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee Chief D.K. Shivakumar accused him of protecting the then Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state. He had accused the top cop of working at the behest of the BJP regime to harass the opposition Congress party leaders.

In fact, Shivakumar had sought the arrest of the state's DGP, claiming that Sood was filing cases against Congress leaders.

Coincidentally, hours before the high-level meeting was held in New Delhi to select the new CBI chief, the opposition Congress party won a landslide mandate in Karnataka, dislodging the ruling BJP there.