New Delhi: BJP today demanded annulment of the government decision to appoint Ranjit Sinha as the new CBI Director, contending that the Select Committee on Lokpal had suggested that such appointments should be done through a collegium method. Watch: BJP opposes appointment of Ranjit Sinha as CBI chief

Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, Leaders of the Opposition in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha respectively, have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking reversal of the decision to appoint Sinha as the next CBI Director.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, the BJP leaders said that appointment of the new CBI Director should not have been done when the Rajya Sabha Select Committee on the Lokpal Bill had recommended that such appointments should be done through collegium.

“The recommendation has been unanimously made by the Select Committee and hopefully will be a part of the law, which will be legislated very soon. This unanimous recommendation indicates that political and national opinion has now converged in the direction of taking the power away from the government of the day alone to appoint the CBI Director since empirical evidence shows that these appointments were motivated by collateral considerations,” the letter said.

It further added, “We must record our strong disappointment and disapproval of this act of the government. We would request you to revisit this matter and keep this appointment in abeyance till such time this recommendation becomes a law of the land. Hoepfully, this can happen in the next few days”.

Sinha, a 1974 batch IPS officer of the Bihar cadre and current Director General of Indo-Tibetan Border Force, has been named by the government as the next director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Sinha will take charge from Amar Pratap Singh, who retires on November 30.

Watch: BJP opposes appointment of Ranjit Sinha as CBI chief