A senior official of the Central Bureau of Investigation has accused the agency’s interim chief M Nageswara Rao of acting out of “malice and prejudice”, PTI reported on Tuesday. CBI Superintendent of Police T Rajah Balaji was transferred within five months of his latest posting.

Balaji alleged that he was transferred because he had complained about Rao’s misconduct to former CBI Director Alok Verma. Verma was removed from his post on January 10 by a selection committee headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, two days after being reinstated by the Supreme Court. The government then appointed Rao as CBI’s interim chief.

Verma was first removed by the government in October last year amid infighting at the agency and allegations of corruption. He had then challenged the government’s move in the top court.

Balaji questioned the “mass transfers” effected by Rao, who had reversed all the transfers ordered by Verma during his two days before his removal.

Balaji, who was transferred from the Anti-Corruption Bureau to the CBI Academy in Ghaziabad on January 21, said Verma had posted him in Delhi since August last year on humanitarian grounds, The Indian Express reported. Balaji said he had requested the posting in order to look after his mother-in-law, who is a cancer patient and is undergoing treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

“It is a known fact that I had complained about your misconduct to the then director CBI on March 11, 2017, and subsequently when you had served me with a memo, your misconduct was set out in more explicit terms by me vide letter May 2, 2017, and, now you have abused your official position to service your personal sleepless malice and prejudice against me at the expense of institutional and public interests,” Balaji wrote in a letter to Rao a day after his transfer.

Balaji said his transfer order is “plainly irrational” because Rao had neither reviewed nor inspected any branches before effecting the transfers.

“I request you on purely humanitarian grounds in the hope that you can truly make a start to redeem your humanity. It is never late in life to become a good man again,” Balaji wrote in the letter that is also a part of his petition to the Central Administrative Tribunal. “Trust me. Trust the better part of your heart. No more, no less.”

Meanwhile, CBI spokesperson Nitin Wakankar said the director’s office is yet to receive Balaji’s representation regarding his transfer.

“As and when it is received through the proper channel, appropriate action as per rules will be taken,” said Wakankar. “It may further be mentioned that Rajah Balaji has been transferred to Ghaziabad, which is the part of the NCR [National Capital Region] only.”