Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on the Supreme Court order granting 14 days to the CVC to probe CBI chief Alok Verma's plea in the court on the CVC asking asking him to go on leave.


Jaitley said all officers of the CBI, particularly the top two officers like Caesar's wife must be beyond suspicion.


"The current CBI controversy is an extremely positive development. The government has no interest for or against any individual. The government is interested in maintaining professionalism, image and  constitutional integrity of the CBI.

"Today, the SC has further strengthened the fairness criteria. They fixed a time limit and in order to ensure that the highest standard of fairness are maintained even in the inquiry they have appointed a retired judge to ensure that the CVC inquiry is extremely fair.

"Recent developments had eroded the credibility of the CBI. CVC in the interest of fairness passed an order that till investigations are pending against two top officers of CBI, they must step aside and recuse themselves from CBI functioning till inquiry is over."


The Supreme Court Friday asked the Central Vigilance Commission to complete within two weeks its inquiry into allegations against CBI Director Alok Kumar Verma and barred interim director M Nageswara Rao from taking any major policy decision.

The inquiry will be conducted under the supervision of a former Supreme Court judge, the court ordered. Hearing Verma's plea challenging the government's decision to divest him of his duties and send him on leave, the court sought a response from the  CVC and the Centre.