The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday denied reports of its ace investigating officer AGL Kaul, an additional superintendent of police (ASP), being taken out of investigations into the Rs 10,000-crore NRHM scam in UP.

It clarified that Kaul was "not connected with the investigation of NRHM irregularities, but with the deaths of the then chief medical officers/dy.chief medical officer in Uttar Pradesh". Moreover, he was changed from the case of the three deaths he was probing "as per his own willingness and as per official exigency in a normal and routine manner".

"CBI emphatically denies as false and baseless, any attempt to project this routine case of work-allocation as unusual or a bid to hamper free and fair investigation," a CBI press note added.

The media reports had claimed that Kaul's withdrawal from the NRHM probe can slow down investigations into the mega scam of complex magnitude. The CBI officials had clarified in response to such reports that Kaul wanted to be excused from the probe into the death of three doctors connected with NRHM since his hands were already full with a lot many other investigations.