Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Will autonomy ever be granted to the CBI?' that was published in Newsband

Will autonomy ever be granted to the CBI?

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said it would not be appropriate for a police agency to sit in judgment over policy formulation without any evidence of mala fides. Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram taking the cue from him cautioned the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and other authorities like the Comptroller and Auditor-General against “overstepping their limits”. The government is clearly uneasy with recent developments: the CBI wishes to be seen as being independent and wants to scrutinise decisions such as those relating to allocation of coal blocks, and there is greater public and judicial support for granting it functional autonomy.

The issue of granting autonomy to the CBI is being discussed in great details. According to some politicians, errors of judgment during decision-making should not be misconstrued by an investigating officer as crimes. Experience shows that corrupt deals do take place in the garb of overtly proper administrative decisions, while policies and norms ostensibly serving the public interest are on many occasions framed in such a way as to suit vested interests.

In a Democracy, all the institutions created by the Constitution as well as Legislature are subject to accountability and checks and balances. The Institutions like the Legislature, political executive, Judiciary have constitutionally well defined roles to play and each one is independent of the other; the problem arises only when one tries to step into the domain of the other.

All the talk of granting autonomy to the CBI is hog wash and on the contrary everything done and spoken is to see that the investigating agency functions as the hand maiden of the ruling class is beyond doubt and the latest sermons from the government side is nothing but efforts to clip the wings of the CBI and make it ineffective and to protect the accused selectively according to needs of the times.

Only an independent investigating agency, competent and capable of discharging its duties as per the Constitution to the citizens, without fear of intimidation by Government/big business/politicians or favour to the accused, can establish whether there were genuine "errors of judgment during decision-making" or in fact abuse of power and crimes were committed.

Desire for truth is the essence of good faith. Good faith consists of the psychological fact (and preferably evidence) of making one’s actions and words consistent with ones inner understanding and beliefs: notions

of sincerity, truthfulness, honesty, veracity, authenticity are all part of it. Lying assumes one knows/believes the truth but deliberately does/says otherwise. A free man always acts honestly, not deceptively. It is an unconditional duty. Tell the truth, unless e.g. to save a life, is the norm.

No politician worth his salt will allow any investigative agency to have parallel authority. Under the current regime we are in for a long fight before CBI is defeated with transfers, promotions and judicial enquiries which will break the back of any honest officer who wants to serve the Country - not the regime.