CBI chief Ranjit Sinha hits back after former CAG Vinod Rai's remark

NEW DELHI: Former CAG Vinod Rai and CBI Chief Ranjit Sinha may be in the same boat with the government having no love lost for either of them. But when the bureaucrat in Rai took on police agencies for not opening up to scrutiny and using the excuse of lack of autonomy to hide their non-performance at a CVC seminar on Tuesday, the cop in Sinha just could not hold back.

"Having heard the opening remarks about the functioning of the police, I will not be true to my salt to not defend the police force. I have been in police for 40 years and this is not the first time that I have heard what the police should be," said Sinha.

Vinod Rai, a former IAS officer, had spoken before that. Probe agencies should sit in "glass houses" so that their actions are up for scrutiny, Rai said. "When posterity judges all of us, particularly those part of investigating agencies, let it not be said that we had all the opportunities, but when the challenge arose, we were found wanting," Rai said.

Sinha in a hard-hitting extempore, shot back: "Whenever there was a crisis situation and I was asked to act, nobody asked me to do things according to rule of law. I was asked to deliver and if I did not deliver, I was given the impression that I was inefficient and I am not fit to work in a field situation."

Sinha said he joined IPS in 1974 hoping for things to improve. "Now, when at I am at the career’s sunset, the reality is that the largest number of police officers is behind bars than at any time since independence. So much for police reforms, so much for the sermons that we get," Sinha said.

Without naming the CBI, Rai said probe agencies "complain and bemoan" that they were unable to function given lack of autonomy. "We sit back hoping that once I get my autonomy, I will do everything properly. That I think will be a bogey and an alibi for non-performance."