New CBI chief Rishi Kumar Shukla: An upright cop who plays by the book

Rishi Kumar Shukla, who has been appointed the new CBI director, is an upright officer, known for not being in the good books of the political bosses.

A 1983-batch Madhya Pradesh-cadre IPS officer, Shukla has spent maximum period of his service in the intelligence wing of the state and government of India. His appointment came as a surprise as it happened merely two days after he was transferred out from the post of the director general of police of Madhya Pradesh.

Gwalior-born Shukla spent many years in the Intelligence Bureau as joint director and later as additional director general of police (intelligence) in Madhya Pradesh. He had also spent a few years as inspector general of police (economic offences). This was the only posting where he handled specialised investigations.

Shukla, the senior-most police officer in Madhya Pradesh, has a reputation of being a tough cop who follows the rulebook to the dot.

He believes in low-profile policing, but has been acting tough on issues related to corruption. His unwillingness to tolerate corruption has resulted in tiffs with political bosses. He had, reportedly, threatened to resign several times over clashes with politicians.

As DGP, he had severe differences with the then BJP home minister Bhupendra Singh, and there have been many occasions when the chief minister had to intervene to sort out the issues.

He had locked horns with former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan once when the former was forced to register a FIR against the whole police station in Balaghat district on the complaint of an RSS worker.

As joint director of the Intelligence Bureau, he worked with Ajit Doval, now the NSA, when the latter was the IB director during the Manmohan Singh regime in 2005.

During the last assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Shukla went on a six-week leave when he had a heart surgery in Mumbai. He was not in the state during the election which saw the BJP being thrown out of power.

The new Congress chief minister did not remove him for nearly 45 days. He was transferred as chairman of Police Housing Corporation two days ago after VK Singh was appointed the new DGP of the state.

Shukla worked as superintendent of police in three districts—Damoh, Shivpuri and Mandsaur.

During his two-and-a-half-year tenure as DGP of Madhya Pradesh, Shukla had courted controversy in 2016 when eight SIMI undertrials were killed by the UP Police in an encounter after they escaped from Bhopal jail on Diwali night.

(This story originally appeared in The Week)