Yogesh Chander Modi (born 8 May 1961) is the former Director-General/Chief of the

National Investigation Agency The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is the principal counter-terrorism law enforcement agency in India. Established under the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008, it is tasked with investigating and combating offenses related to terroris ...

(NIA) of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. A retired 1984 batch officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, Y.C. Modi has over 33 years of experience in the Indian Police Service (IPS). He served as Director-General of the NIA from October 30, 2017Official Press Release by NIA - Yogesh Chander Modi Assumes Charge of the Director General, National Investigation Agency - Date: 30 Oct, 2017 http://nia.gov.in/writereaddata/Portal/PressReleaseNew/466_1_pressrelease.pdf and held this position till his superannuation on May 31, 2021. The Director-General is highest ranking agency executive in the NIA appointed by the Central Government of India, and Y.C. Modi is the 4th person to hold this post after Radha Vinod Raju, SC Sinha and Sharad Kumar.

Career in Indian Police Service

Y.C. Modi worked with the

Central Bureau of Investigation The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the domestic crime investigating agency of India. It operates under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. Originally set up to investigate bribery and gover ...

(CBI) for a period of around 10 years in two stints (2002-2010 and 2015–2017) where he handled Special Crime and Economic Offences besides Anti-Corruption cases. From 1991 to 2002, he worked with Cabinet Secretariat of India and did various postings including one outside India. In the States of

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

and

Meghalaya Meghalaya (; "the abode of clouds") is a states and union territories of India, state in northeast India. Its capital is Shillong. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the Assam: the United Khasi Hills an ...

, he was posted as SDPO, Distt S.P., DIG (Range) and

Additional Director General of Police The Additional Director General of Police (Addl. DGP) is a senior rank in the Indian Police Service (IPS). It is the second-highest rank in the state police forces of India, below the Director General of Police (DGP) and above the Inspector Gener ...

(Law & Order). Prior to joining the NIA on promotion, he was working as Additional Director, CBI, New Delhi. Modi had joined the NIA as Officer on Special Duty (OSD) on September 22, 2017, and shortly after was made the Director-General and served their till 31 May 2021.

Recognition

He was awarded with the Police Medal for Meritorious Service in 2001 and the President's Police Medal for Distinguished Service in the year 2008.

Notable Cases

Y.C. Modi was part of a

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

-appointed SIT (Special Investigation Team) that probed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's role in the

2002 Gujarat riots The 2002 Gujarat riots, also known as the 2002 Gujarat violence or the Gujarat pogrom, was a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The Godhra train burning, burning of a train in Godhra on 27 Fe ...

. As part of the SIT, where he was inducted in 2010 and served until July 2012, among the other incidents he probed was the Naroda Patiya massacre. The SIT cleared Narendra Modi, who at that time was Gujarat's Chief Minister.

Controversy related to the Haren Pandya Case

Another key case he handled in Gujarat during his posting in the CBI during the tenure of

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

as chief minister of Gujarat was the murder of

Haren Pandya Haren Pandya (27 August 1961 – 26 March 2003) was the Home Minister of Gujarat in India. He was murdered in 2003 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, when he was sitting in his car (the place of his murder is contentious), after a morning walk in the Law Ga ...

, once a political rival to Narendra Modi, in Gandhinagar in 2003. The probe which was headed by Y.C. Modi was slammed by the Gujarat High Court for “ineptitude resulting into injustice” & that "the investigating officers concerned ought to be held accountable for their ineptitude resulting into injustice, huge harassment of many persons concerned and enormous waste of public resources and public time of the courts.". The Pandya investigation led to the conviction of 12 persons under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). They were all subsequently

acquitted In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal means that the criminal prosecution has failed to prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charge presented. It certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an o ...

(found not guilty) by the Gujarat High Court in 2011, having spent eight years in jail. The Supreme Court has vindicated the investigation done by the team headed by Y.C. Modi in its judgement on July 5, 2019. A Division Bench comprising Justices Arun Mishra and Vineet Saran overturned the High Court's judgement and observed, "The CBI has investigated the case thoroughly and minutely and the conspiracy between accused persons has been found established. There is voluminous evidence discussed in criminal appeals decided today vide separate judgment with respect to the complicity of the accused persons in the offence. It cannot be said that investigation was unfair, lopsided, botched up or misdirected in any manner whatsoever, as had been observed by the High Court in the judgment which we have set aside...The observations made by the High Court in the judgment which we have set aside were based on lopsided approach without consideration of the entire evidence on record and on the wholly incorrect appreciation of the evidence which was clearly perverse."

References

External links