 "Will Modi signal dampen CBI?")
It is too early to conclude whether such a signal has slowed the so-called “witch-hunt” spree of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Yet, some cases which were in advanced stages of a probe until a few weeks earlier, seem to be on the back burner, for now.
For instance, the agency has not taken any decision on which way its probe will go against C B Bhave, former chief of the Securities & Exchange Board of India, questioned for the granting of a licence to the Financial Technologies (India) group for setting up MCX Stock Exchange. Bhave was called for questioning by CBI in early May.
Before that, it had questioned former coal secretary P C Parakh in the coal block allocation case, where industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla was also named. The agency has not been able to reach any conclusion about the future of the First Information Report (FIR) that named Birla and Parakh, among others. CBI has also not been able to make any progress in its FIR against former MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal in the coal scam.
A senior CBI official, who did not wish to be named said wryly, “The GDP of the country has to be increased, after all,” hinting at a slowing in the agency's investigative zeal.
CBI’s side of the story is that only eight officers of the rank of joint secretary and above and currently in service are under the CBI lens in various FIRs and preliminary enquiries. “It is not such a big number as to cause a policy paralysis in the entire system, as the bureaucracy would have us believe,” a senior IPS officer said.
However, CBI was only following Supreme Court directions in some of the high profile cases like telecom spectrum and coal block allocation. With SC’s close monitoring, CBI had speeded its probe in these cases. Legal experts argue that once the apex court again starts to seek updates on cases from CBI, the investigative work could again gain momentum.
The eight officers whom CBI is investigating are named in scams such as that of the National Rural Health Mission in UP, where politicians and bureaucrats allegedly siphoned off funds meant for health care; the Adarsh housing case in Maharashtra, and the Jaganmohan Reddy bribery scandal in Andhra, among others. In addition, there are cases against many former bureaucrats including Siddhartha Behura, Shyamal Ghosh and P C Parakh, facing CBI heat in the telecom and coal scams.
According to a recently retired bureaucrat, civil servants as a class don’t feel threatened by CBI investigations. Those who say their work is crippled because of a witch hunt by the agency are using it as an excuse. “Earlier, there was protection available to bureaucrats from the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers when decision-making was questioned. That changed during the UPA rule,” he said.
During the controversy around the FIR registered for allocation of coal block to Birla’s Hindalco, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who held additional charge of coal ministry when the blocks were allocated, had issued a statement that it was his decision. “The PM and his cabinet colleagues needed to do that (own up responsibility in decision-making) much more for the many cases under investigation,” another former bureaucrat said.