Last week, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was forced to close two high-profile investigations. One was related to coal block allocations, against the industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and the retired bureaucrat P C Parakh. The other was related to approval for the MCX-SX stock exchange, and was against the former head of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, C B Bhave, and a member of the board, K M Abraham. In both cases, the CBI was forced to admit there was no criminality in the decisions taken. The CBI should have learned its lessons from this humiliation. Instead, it seems to feel that it did nothing whatsoever wrong. This is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the fact that at the same time as withdrawing these two investigations, it filed a First Information Report (FIR) naming former disinvestment secretary Pradeep Baijal in an investigation into the disinvestment of a hotel in Udaipur as many as 12 years ago. This is worrying. The CBI seems to think it is not accountable for its errors; it needs to learn that it is. The government should take steps to hold it accountable, beginning with the removal of CBI Director Ranjit Sinha.
In closing investigations against Mr Parakh and Mr Birla, the CBI has had to admit the truth of the point made by both gentlemen from day one - and made uncharacteristically forcefully, too, by then prime minister Manmohan Singh, who held the coal portfolio for much of the relevant time. Similarly, the CBI has been forced to admit that Mr Bhave and Mr Abraham did nothing criminal - though the agency, in what can only be seen as an attempt to save some face, urged the finance ministry to investigate "irregularities" in the regulators' decisions. In each of these cases, policy or administrative decisions had been taken transparently, with the claims on how they were in the national interest clearly stated at the time and subsequently. But instead of realising that investigations into such decisions should be undertaken with greater care, the CBI has instead named Mr Baijal in an FIR. The agency claims that the hotel being privatised, the Laxmi Vilas, was undervalued, since it was sold at Rs 7.5 crore when the value of the land was at least Rs 150 crore. This logic, of course, makes the problematic assumption that the purchaser would have been able to demolish a protected heritage structure, built in 1911, in order to monetise the land.
It is vital that the CBI not remain, as it allegedly was for many years, a political instrument of the party in power in New Delhi. But in seeking greater independence for its actions, it must not be rendered unaccountable. Increasingly, it appears that it is, under its current leadership, striking out without due thought to the legal, moral and economic consequences of its decisions. Mr Parakh and Mr Baijal retired in 2005 and 2006; to chase them down for decisions taken transparently and with political backing only adds to the likelihood of administrative paralysis. Clearly, the CBI intends to persist on this dangerous path. Who will be held to account for the victims of the CBI's accusations? For the damage to the economy? The CBI must be held responsible.
