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Much before the Gauhati High Court's ruling on CBI's status, Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari had tabled a private member's bill in Parliament in 2010 seeking statutory status for the premier investigation agency saying it was not a legal body.
After the high court struck down the resolution through which the CBI was set up and held all its actions as "unconstitutional", Tewari today said he took the initiative three years ago as an MP and now as a Union minister he was bound by the collective decision of the government.
"As a Member of Parliament I had flagged certain issues but as a minister of the Union, I am bound by the conventions of the government, whereby government takes a view, there is a collective view, which gets articulated," he said.
In his bill, Tewari had sought statutory status for the CBI and his bill raised existential questions about the agency.
"In my view, the CBI is not a legal body. It draws its powers from a moth-eaten piece of legislation from the British Raj --the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act (DSPE) (1946) whose legality is tenuous and whose six brief clauses carry the entire weight of the CBI's investigations into the many different kinds of crimes that afflict modern India, like economic espionage, cyber crimes and terrorism," he had said then.
Tewari, however, today said government was considering options on how to deal with the Gauhati High Court order.
"I am sure Government will take whatever steps are necessary and appropriate to see the situation is remedied. If at all any long term measures need to be taken which flow out of this particular judgement, I am sure the government will take that into consideration," he said.
