CBI chief set for post-retirement job

New Delhi, Oct. 13: CBI director Amar Pratap Singh is set to get a post-retirement job as a member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

Sources said Singh, who retires on November 30, would be appointed a member of the NHRC the next day, replacing P.C. Sharma, a former director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, whose term with the rights panel ended in June.

Permanent members of the rights commission, headed by former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, enjoy the rank of a minister of state at the Centre.

The nine-member NHRC includes four permanent and four ex-officio members apart from the chairperson.

Very few CBI directors have been rewarded with post-retirement sinecures. The last to be rewarded was Sharma, who was one of the few commission members not related to the judiciary when he was appointed in March 2004.

His successors ' U.S. Misra, Vijay Shanker and Ashwani Kumar ' had retired without plum post-retirement jobs.

Singh's successor will be shortlisted on October 18 at a meeting held by the chief vigilance commissioner, The Telegraph has learnt. The CBI comes under the vigilance commission, which shortlists three names before sending the recommendations for the director's post to the Prime Minister's Office.

Singh ' who is known to have been a strong supporter of keeping the CBI out of government control and under whom the agency has been investigating several scams that have troubled the UPA government ' would retain his Lodhi Road house.

Sources said the house, the official residence of the agency director for years, had already been allotted in the name of the outgoing director.

A new bungalow on Janpath is understood to have been earmarked by the urban development ministry for the new director.

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CBI chief set for post-retirement job