Praveen Sood, the Director General of Police (DGP) of Karnataka, was appointed as the new Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday. Sood will take over from the outgoing CBI Director, Subodh Kumar Jaiswal, whose tenure concludes on May 25. He will assume the charge for a period of two years.
The decision was made by a high-level committee consisting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, and the leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
A 1986-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, Sood originally hails from Himachal Pradesh. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore, and Syracuse University in New York.
His first posting after joining IPS was in Mysore in 1989. He later served as the Commissioner of Police in Mysore from 2004 to 2007. During his tenure, he and his team successfully apprehended Fahad, also known as Mohammed Koya, and Mohammed Ali Hussain, also known as Jahangir, both members of the Al Badr group. This arrest took place after an exchange of gunfire on the night of October 26, 2006, in which the terrorists were later convicted for waging war against the nation under the provisions of the Explosive Substances Act and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
During his career, Praveen Sood held various significant positions. From 2008 to 2011, he served as the Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) for Bengaluru. In 2013, he took on the role of Managing Director of the Karnataka State Police Housing Corporation. His leadership was instrumental in boosting the company’s turnover from ₹160 crore to ₹282 crore within a span of just nine months.
Apart from serving various administrative roles in Karnataka, Sood established ‘Namma 100’, an ‘Emergency Response System’, which provides 24×7 support with the help of 276 Emergency Response Vehicles (Hoysala) across Bengaluru. Additionally, he played a key role in launching the ‘Suraksha’ App and the ‘Pink Hoysala’ program, led by female officers, which specifically caters to women and children in distress.
His dedication and achievements have been recognized through prestigious awards. He received the Chief Minister’s Gold Medal for excellence in service in 1996, the Police Medal for Meritorious Service in 2002, and the President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service in 2011. Furthermore, he was honored with the Prince Michael International Road Safety Award in 2006 for his outstanding contributions to road safety and traffic management. In 2011, he was also presented with the national E-Governance Gold Award for the “Most innovative use of technology for Traffic Management.”
A few months ago, Praveen Sood attracted media attention when he faced accusations from Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar of displaying a biased attitude towards the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Shivakumar went as far as calling the DGP ‘Nalayak’ and declared that the Congress would take strong action against him once they came to power.
Shivakumar said “DGP has been in service for the last three years and how many more days will he continue to be a BJP worker? He has registered around 25 cases against Congress leaders and not even a single case against BJP leaders in the state.”