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For civil servants in Bihar, 2006 and 2007 were golden years. Nitish Kumar had been installed as chief minister in 2005, and he was determined to get the bureaucracy to become a political force multiplier and get it to — well, just do its job. Anil Kumar Sinha, then additional director general of police, headquarters, was among those chosen by Kumar to help him in this endeavour.
Soon after, Kumar wanted an FIR filed against a legislator from his own Janata Dal (United). Anant Singh, MLA from Mokama, had been trying to get owners of shops on Patna’s posh Fraser Road to vacate their premises; the original owner of the plot and his wife had both died without heirs and Singh thought this was a good time to take over. He advised shop owners to sell their plots to him in their own interest. The gunmen just stood by while he spoke, guns hanging loosely on their sides.
It fell on Sinha to motivate, threaten and persuade policemen at the Kotwali police station to file the complaint against Singh. Those who know Bihar politics and society alone can appreciate that this was easier said than done. Sinha got an FIR registered, but the policemen would reach Singh’s house in Patna, find him absent, paste a notice on the gate and return. Singh couldn’t be found by the police, although reporters located him without difficulty and he addressed press conferences freely! Speaking to Business Standard in 2007, Sinha pledged he would get the job done. And indeed, a case was filed against Singh. It was a sign that the man who has just been appointed director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) meant business.
The legislator’s arrest was just one of the thousands that Sinha effected in Bihar. In 2006, with PK Sahi, then the advocate general of the state, he invoked the provision of the Arms Act that required only the testimony of police sub-inspector to arrest goondas and rid the state of its gun culture. He also reopened the probe into the 1989 Bhagalpur riots, in which more than 2,000 people had died, and build strong cases against many of the accused who had been let off.
After moving to the vigilance department, he took up the fight against officials whose assets were found to be disproportionate to their income. It was Sinha’s idea to set up special courts to try corrupt officials. The most significant aspect of the special courts was that the immovable assets of persons being tried in these courts could be seized during the pendency of the trial.
The Special Court Bill was passed by the state Assembly in March 2009. The President gave her assent to the Bill in January 2010. In 2010, the home of one of the officials found to have assets disproportionate to his income was seized by the state government and turned into a school. Kumar won the 2010 Assembly elections on the back of this legislation.
But as is inevitable in Bihar, caste politics intervened. Sinha left Patna to join the Central Vigilance Commission and then CBI as Ranjit Sinha’s second in command.
Sinha’s greatest quality as he takes up command of CBI is that he fears no one but the Constitution and the law and brings with him an earthy dedication to the job. Hopefully, this will let in some light into the dark corners of India’s premier investigation agency.
