Reforming CBI

The outgoing CBI director A P Singh’s suggestions for improving the functioning of the investigating agency are welcome but his claim that the agency is not the handmaiden of the government in power will be disputed.

The statements are in fact contradictory. He has said  that the CBI was insulated from outside pressures in important cases like the 2G spectrum allotment case, as the Supreme Court was monitoring the investigation.

That amounts to an admission that there was pressure and that the agency could deal with such pressure only when there was judicial oversight. His claims about fair and independent

investigation of disproportionate assets cases against former UP chief minister Mayawati and Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav are also not convincing. There are also other cases where the government hand is seen either in activating investigation or stifling it, depending on the political interests of the government in power.

Singh did not perhaps want to make an open admission of it for obvious reasons, but diplomatically says that the public impression of the CBI being the whip of the government needs to be addressed. His proposals in this respect convey the message that the agency should be independent of  the government.

One suggestion is that the CBI director should be appointed by a collegium which includes the leader of the opposition too. The proposal is not new and even recently the select committee on the Lokpal bill had suggested this.

The government’s refusal to heed the suggestion in the case of appointment of Singh’s successor had created a controversy. Singh’s proposal for a fixed five-year tenure for the CBI director, as against the present two-year term, is also welcome as this will give the incumbent scope to make long-term planning.

Singh says he could not do many things which he wanted to do, like filling up many vacancies, improving procedures and creating better investigative infrastructure, because he did not have the time at hand for them.

What these proposals and others point to is the need to change and upgrade the status of the CBI.

The CBI can have real functional autonomy only if it has a constitutional status which will make it immune to political and administrative pressures. Delinking the agency from the government is vital for fair, impartial and effective investigation of corruption and other cases which it has to take up.

Unfortunately parties make the demand only when they are in the opposition.