Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, terming the appointment of M Nageswara Rao as the CBI's interim director "illegal" and demanding that a meeting of the selection committee be convened immediately to appoint a new chief of the probe agency.

Kharge, who is part of the Prime Minister-headed three-member panel that removed Alok Verma as CBI chief, alleged that the government is scared of CBI led by an "independent" director. "Actions of the government indicate that it's scared of a CBI headed by an independent director," Kharge wrote to Modi.