Vahanvati briefs GoM on CBI autonomy

The Group of Ministers on the empowerment of CBI were today briefed by Attorney General Goolam E Vahanvati on the Supreme Court order asking the government to suggest ways for empowering the agency.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and Law Minister Kapil Sibal were briefed by Vahanvati who gave the sense of what Supreme Court had said in its order.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde and Minister of State for Personnel V Narayanasamy who are also part of the group could not attend the meeting due to their outstation engagements, sources privy to the meeting said.
The meeting was aimed at shortlisting issues which need to be addressed while devising ways to empower CBI as desired by the Supreme Court in its order.

During the last meeting, Department of Personnel had expressed its reservations against any proposal to scrap Section 6A of the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act which requires the agency to seek permission of the Centre before initiating a probe against an official of the rank of Joint Secretary and above in a corruption case.
More financial powers to the CBI director also did not find strong support during the meeting.
The GoM was constituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to prepare a draft law to insulate CBI from external influence and a draft affidavit to be presented in the Supreme Court which had made scathing observations against the agency while hearing the coal blocks allocation scam case.