• The Centre extended the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Praveen Sood’s tenure by a year.

• Sood is a 1986-batch IPS officer of the Karnataka cadre. He was posted as Karnataka’s Director General of Police (DGP) when he was named as the CBI director.

• Born in Himachal Pradesh’s Kangra district in 1964, he joined the IPS at the age of 22 years after completing his civil engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

• He has also served as police adviser to the government of Mauritius.

• Sood took over as the CBI chief on May 25, 2023 for a two-year term.

• The decision to extend his tenure was taken in a meeting of the selection committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and comprising Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi.

• The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, based on the recommendations of the selection committee, approved Sood’s extension for a period of one year beyond May 24, an order issued by the Personnel Ministry said.

• The extension comes three years after the Centre amended the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, 1946, which governs the functioning of the CBI.

• The Parliament had on December 14, 2021 passed the DSPE (Amendment) Bill, 2021 to extend the tenure of the CBI director to a maximum of five years. It became the law after receiving the President’s assent on December 18, 2021.

• The new law allows the government to extend the CBI director’s tenure “in public interest” on the recommendation of the selection committee “up to one year at a time”.

• The Supreme Court in its 1997 verdict in the Vineet Narain vs Union of India case had issued a specific order that the CBI director shall have a minimum tenure of two years.

Additional Read:

Evolution of CBI

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the premier anti-corruption investigative agency in India. It has the experience of handling high profile conventional crimes, economic offences, banking frauds and crimes with international links. The CBI traces its origin to the Special Police Establishment (SPE) which was set up in 1941 by the government of India.

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