Rakesh Asthana, 6 others appointed NHRC special monitors

According to the order, Asthana will work as a special monitor who will oversee thematic areas of terrorism, counter-insurgency, communal riots, and Left-wing extremism.

AGMUT-cadre retired IPS officer Muktesh Chandra will oversee thematic areas of cybercrime and artificial intelligence. “Amitabh Agnihotri will see thematic areas; environment, climate change and human rights, while Sanjay Agarwal will see thematic areas; elementary education and literacy and R K Sama will see thematic areas; water, sanitation and hygiene (wash),” the order states.

It further states, “Manohar Agani will see thematic areas; public health, healthcare and hospital (mental health, HIV/Aids, Spurious drugs, diagnostics and labs) and thematic areas of livelihood, skilling and employment will be looked after by Jyotsna Sitling.”

In 2021, four days before his scheduled retirement, the Centre had appointed 1984-batch Gujarat cadre IPS officer Asthana as the new Delhi police commissioner till July 31, 2022. Asthana was the chief of the Border Security Force (BSF) and also held additional charge of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). Before his joining, Balaji Srivastava, an IPS officer of the 1988 AGMUT batch, was given additional charge as Delhi police commissioner and he left after only 27 days.

Asthana has had diverse experience in service, having served both in state government and at the Centre, where he served twice in the CBI. During his first stint in the agency, he investigated the fodder scam, which resulted in the conviction of former Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav.

As a special director in the CBI, Asthana was involved in a bitter feud with the agency’s then director Alok Verma. At the peak of the turf war within CBI, Verma registered an FIR against Asthana on October 15, 2018, alleging that a suspect in the Moin Qureshi case had been forced to pay Rs 2.95 crore to Asthana through two middlemen to water down the case against him. Asthana was eventually cleared of all charges and the CBI had submitted in the high court that there was no evidence to support the charges against him.

The incident precipitated such a crisis that the government swooped down on the agency at midnight on October 21, 2018, and forced both to go on leave. Nageswara Rao was then handed over the charge of CBI temporarily.