Senior IPS officer Praveen Sood assumed charge as the new CBI director on Thursday and he will be in the post for two years. On his last working day, outgoing director Subodh Kumar Jaiswal handed Sood the charge of the agency at its headquarters here. After taking charge, Sood interacted with the officers of CBI and is likely to meet all the heads of branches in the coming days to discuss their cases. Sood’s appointment was announced in an order issued by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions on May 14, a day after the Congress emerged the winner in the Karnataka Assembly elections. A 1986-batch IPS officer of the Karnataka cadre, Sood was appointed Karnataka DGP in January 2020, superseding Ashit Mohan Prasad, who was from the previous batch. He is the senior-most IPS officer in the country after Jaiswal. Sood’s name was cleared by the high-powered selection committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month. Hailing from Himachal Pradesh, 58-year-old Sood is an alumni of IIT-Delhi and holds a BTech degree in civil engineering. He started his career as Assistant Superintendent of Police of Mysuru in 1989. He later served as the SP of Bellary and Raichur before getting transferred to Bengaluru city as DCP (law and order). In 1999, he went on foreign deputation as police advisor to the Government of Mauritius for three years where he worked closely with European and American police. In 2003, he took a sabbatical to pursue PG in Public Policy and Management from IIM-Bangalore and Maxwell School of Governance, Syracuse University, New York. In 2004, he was posted as Commissioner of Police of Mysuru. During his stint in Mysuru, he also played a key role in the arrest of alleged Pakistan-origin terrorists. During his 37 years of service, Sood served in various capacities in the Karnataka Police and he is known for his hands-on approach. He had supervised investigation of high-profile cases involving high net-worth individuals and matters having inter-state and international ramifications. He also supervised probes in areas such as cyber crime and information technology, a CBI statement said.
