Parrot remains caged, ridiculed for its plight

Bashing the CBI has become the norm among the media, intellectuals and politicians. It is true that the probe agency has got a bad name, but that’s because the Government of the day does not allow it to function freely
As is the case with many institutions whose origins can be traced back to the British raj, the CBI is governed by an archaic set of rules and laws in spite of the changed circumstances in the country. The parent organisation of the CBI was the Special Police Establishment, set up by the British in 1941 to investigate corruption in the War and Supply Department of India during World War II. After the War, the organisation became the primary body to investigate cases of bribery and graft against Central Government employees. In 1946, it was renamed the Delhi Special Police Establishment, its mandate extended to cover all departments under the Government of India, and the organisation
Almost two decades later, on April 1, 1963, the Delhi Special Police Establishment was renamed the Central Bureau of Investigation. It is not for me to say if the Government played a prank on the people by establishing the CBI on April 1, which is universally celebrated as April Fools Day. Nevertheless, the key point here is that, the change in nomenclature notwithstanding, the basic law upon which the CBI is premised is the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act of 1946, which is a relic of the Raj.
This year, the DP Kohli Memorial lecture was delivered on April 15 by Mr Gopalkrishna Gandhi, a long-standing civil servant who served as Governor of West Bengal from 2004 to 2009. He said that the CBI has a “very mixed image”, is seen as the “Government’s hatchet” and often called the “department of dirty tricks”. He also said that the CBI was “clothed in opacity, then ornamented by secrecy and finally perfumed by mystery”. But subsequently, he also noted, “There is justified criticism of CBI high-handedness and lack of sensitivity to loss of reputation of senior members of the bureaucracy against whom needless inquiries can get initiated.”
On the relationship between politicians and the CBI, Mr Gandhi observed: “The glib manner in which one hears politician of almost every party say that if voted to office or voted back to office they will see to it that so-and-so will be in jail shows how they take the system for granted. Such politicians would want the CBI to be its hatchet, falling on whom he wants it to fall, when he wants to fall, and with the force he wants it to fall with. This is no surprise. After all the politician in office wants to use all the compulsories and optional of power available to him. But why should the CBI not resist that?”
Mr Gandhi elucidated further: “Whether to settle personal scores against political adversaries or to force independent civil servants to fall in line with an unscrupulous executive, pressure does get to be exerted over the CBI. No political party is a saint in this matter. But the CBI cannot afford to be complicit in this capriciousness. It must resist the unethical overtures.”
In this context, Mr Gandhi also rightly cautioned the CBI, its Director and its officials not to be “swayed by sensationalism”. He warned that “there is the temptation to bring down reputations of civil servants through unethical leaks to the media in real time during the course of investigations” and that CBI officials must realise that “the author of today’s faucet leak can be the subject of tomorrow’s shower”.
Unfortunately, Mr Gandhi’s speech reflected a total ignorance —though not deliberate — of the laws that govern the functioning of the CBI. The agency does not make the laws that can ensure its independent functioning. It is just like any other Government department and often the favourite whipping boy.
In May 2010, the Supreme Court questioned the credibility of the CBI’s probe into the coal scam as it observed that the “the heart of the report was changed on the suggestions of the Government officials…” The apex court lamented that it is a “sordid saga that there are many masters and one parrot”. It ordered that it be ensured “that the CBI functions free of all external pressures... If the CBI is not made independent, we will step in”.
The court also asked the Government to appraise it of the steps it takes to give independence to the CBI. After dragging the matter for several months, the Government informed the Supreme Court in July 2013, that the CBI will be given functional autonomy and its Director and other top officers will be appointed by a committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India or a judge nominated by him.
It proposed to insulate the CBI from Government interference by amending the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act of 1946. But, so far, no significant steps have been taken in that direction. The truth is that no Government wants an autonomous police or investigation agency. This was true of the British rulers; it is true for the Government of the day as well.
There are contradictory expectations from the CBI. One the one hand, there is a demand for CBI inquiry into even ordinary cases. On the other, people expect the CBI to have a magic wand to solve their cases. Often, the common man expects that an accused should be arrested in the morning, tried in the afternoon, and the sentence pronounced in the evening. But this happens only in films, not real life.
There are several reasons why the CBI is often ineffective. For instance, it can’t take any action against Union Government employees posted in States where the CBI has no consent to operate. Yet, income tax officers, customs officers and railways officers, to name just a few, are posted all over the country. Similarly, it is difficult for the CBI to draw a roadmap for its functioning, as it is not a constitutional body like the Election Commission. There is no Central law governing the CBI. The enactment of a CBI Act has been gathering dust for over four decades.
If the CBI has to become an efficient organisation it has to be given constitutional status, along with financial autonomy. A supervisory commission of retired Supreme Court judges can ensure checks and balances in the system. This has already been promised by the Government, but the assurance is still on the drawing board.