 "Congress questions legal status of CBI")
The Congress questioned the legal validity of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and said the Centre should urge the Supreme Court (SC) to clear the air in the matter.
The Congress' comments come in the wake of the suicide of former bureaucrat B K Bansal and his family for alleged torture at the hands of the CBI in a corruption case.
According to Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari, the Gauhati High Court had in 2013 said the CBI was an illegal body. The SC later granted a stay on the order.
"The CBI is an illegal organisation. The legitimacy of the CBI hangs by the thread of an SC order. Should the government not go and tell the SC that the legality of the CBI needs to be adjudicated," said Tewari. He further said till that was done, no fresh cases should be given to the agency. "Till the time the legality of the CBI is not adjudicated, in existence until the SC decides to agree or disagree with the Gauhati High Court's orders, the CBI should stop taking further cases."
In the past, the premier probe agency has been slammed by both the Congress and the BJP according to their political convenience.
Termed as a "caged parrot" by an angry apex court during the previous government, the investigation agency was often referred to as the Congress Bureau of Investigation by the then main opposition BJP.
Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi has said the BJP-led Centre was using the CBI as a tool to control regional players like the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Both SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati are facing cases related to disproportionate assets being probed by the CBI.
The argument against the CBI is that the Executive Order, dated 1 April, 1963, does not disclose that the CBI has been constituted under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act. Secondly, the CBI is merely a change of name of the DSPE and does not have legal standing, as the DSPE Act, 1946, specifically mentions that the police force constituted under the DSPE Act shall be called the "Delhi Special Police Establishment".
