Central Bureau of Investigation

The Central Bureau of Investigation

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was set up in 1963 by a resolution of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Later, it was transferred to the Ministry of Personnel and now it enjoys the status of an attached office.

The establishment of the CBI was recommended by the Santhanam Committee on Prevention of Corruption (1962-1964). The CBI is not a statutory body. It drives its powers from the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946.

The CBI is the main investigating agency of the central Government. It plays an important role in the prevention of corruption and maintaining integrity in administration. It also provides assistance to the Central Vigilance Commission.

With the ‘caged parrot’ comment of the Supreme Court, the debate is now on for wide-ranging reforms of the CBI, to provide it ‘autonomy’ in investigation. A large proportion of cases under the purview of CBI involve directly the interests of government and its functionaries. The caveat in the Veneer Narain pronouncement by the Supreme Court in 1997 specifically directed the state not to intervene in any manner in the course of investigation—a reiteration of the dictum that the ‘suspect’ should not be allowed to dictate the direction of investigation; flagrant violation of this principle has now prompted the apex court to insist on functional autonomy of the CBI.

Happily, the nature of the debate has now changed from ‘whether’ to ‘how’ the CBI needs to be reformed—with this basic shift, the technical aspects of CBI reforms need not pose too many difficulties. A squirming government would now attempt to find a cosmetic solution to ‘free’ the CBI while actually retaining effective operational control—this should not be allowed to happen.

Enactment of laws is not in the province of the apex court; however, pronouncing the principles to govern the functioning of CBI is well within its purview. No doubt, Parliament may or may not observe the court’s directive to pass a ‘CBI law’—however, till this is done, the directives of the court will have the force of law as ‘continuing mandamus’.

No agency can be allowed to have total independence or autonomy without checks and balances—in Indian conditions, this will mean creation of an uncontrollable monster. If an independent, neutral Lokpal were in position, it would have been ideal for him to oversee the functioning of CBI.It was mainly on the question of ‘independence’ of CBI that the Lokpal could not be established. In the absence of Lokpal, the second best alternative could be to link the CBI to be ‘guided’ and ‘supervised’ by a special committee chaired by the Central Vigilance Commissioner, consisting of four or five members with experience of the judiciary/administration, selected on merit in a bi-partisan manner. This is one model—others could be examined—but a neutral mechanism to watch over the overall functioning of the CBI would be essential to be put in place; this will replace the umbilical cord relationship with government that the CBI suffers from at present. This interim arrangement can be in place, till an independent Lokpal is created.

The ‘control’ by government over CBI basically is on four different platforms—finance, personnel, investigation, access to expertise. It is obvious that full autonomy in investigation needs to be given to the agency—no functionary, however powerful, would have the right to interfere in the details of any investigation. There are many government agencies which perform autonomously while financed by government—like CAG, CVC, and EC. This issue should pose no operational difficulty—CBI’s budget can be under the purview of the CVC Special Committee. This oversight committee could also deal with operational issues of the CBI requiring additional expertise of different sorts on an ad-hoc basis, from time to time.

The issue of personnel for the CBI requires some thought. The selection for the director and top three levels of the organisation ought to be in the domain of the CVC supervisory committee, referred to above. A judicious mix consisting of a permanent CBI cadre, along with deputationists from the police cadres, as well as expertise from outside, can be designed to ensure optimal results. We need to remember that the CBI is an efficient agency—its malaise stems from government interests dictating the course of individual cases.

The view has been expressed that the agency can function under direct parliamentary oversight, on the analogy of the experience in other countries—this will not work in Indian conditions. Imagine a scenario where a possible list of members of such a parliamentary committee would include, say, A Raja, P K Bansal, Bangaru Laxman, Raja Bhaiya, Lalu Prasad Yadav, P C Chacko—so many other names can be mentioned—Gresham’s law will come into play. Like in other cases of statutory and constitutional bodies, an annual report on the functioning of the CBI could be placed for debate in Parliament— the control of the House ought not to extend beyond this. We have seen the havoc caused by executive ‘oversight’; the higher judiciary cannot be burdened with monitoring every case or investigation—we need to find our own unique Indian model.