The Left parties want the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to be made an autonomous agency so that political interference in its functioning could be stopped. Some Left leaders say that they might raise the issue at the United Front (UF) steering committee meeting on January 15.
Left leaders say that when new scams are being uncovered every day, the country's main investigating agancies should be given more teeth, rather than having their powers curtailed. They have said this before, but the point has acquired a new edge because of reports that the CBI's wings could be further clipped.
The government recently decided that the CBI should seek prior permission before initiating any investigation against officers of the rank of joint director and above in banks. The move is understood to have been taken to protect some officers of the Indian Bank who are close to Tamil Maanila Congress (TNC) chief G K Moopnar.
The government is also reported to be considering a move that would debar the CBI from initiating investigations against Union ministers, current as well as former, without the prior permission of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). These moves have taken the Left parties by surprise. They point out that, while the UF common minimum programme speaks of a corruption-free administration, these steps suggest that there is an effort to shield all corrupt people: politicians, bureaucrats and bank officials.
Instead, why should not the government go for a Bill to protect the looters, Communist Party of India (CPI) secretary Atul Kumar Anjaan sarcastically said. On whether the CPI minister had raised these issue inside the government, however, he did not give a direct reply, saying only that this was the party's thinking and all right thinking persons should raise the issue.
Asked whether the CBI should be handed over to the home ministry, where it used to be a few years ago, Communist Party of India (Marxist) politbureau member S Ramachandran Pillai said that transferring the CBI from one ministry to another would not solve the problem.
The idea is to make it free from political intereference. There should be a serious thinking on the issue of whether the bureau could be given guarantees of autonomy such as the ones for the Election Commission (EC), he said.
