CBI drops clause on booking politicians and bureaucrats

NEW DELHI: After getting a rap on its knuckles from the Supreme Court for sharing its status report in the Coal scam with former Law Minister Ashwani Kumar and bureaucrats of coal ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the CBI had planned to ask the government to change the law enabling it to prosecute politicians and bureaucrats interfering in its probes. The CBI had planned to propose that such actions attract up to a fiveyear jail term.


However, the CBI backed out at the last minute from pressing for this provision formally before the Group Of Ministers (GoM) constituted to suggest how to make CBI autonomous, in the wake of feedback from parts of the government that this could be perceived as “draconian” by the GoM, a top CBI official has told ET, asking not to be identified. “This proposal was discussed inside CBI in our internal meetings of senior officers.

There was brain-storming over it but we decided ultimately that we should not press for it before the GoM,” CBI Director Ranjit Sinha confirmed to ET. However, in a draft shared with certain wings of the government, the CBI had pressed for this amendment to Section 9 of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.

“In Section 9 of the PC Act, a proviso should be included that if any political executive or bureaucrat interferes with the investigation by calling for the record relating to on-going investigation/enquiry with an intent to influence investigation/enquiry would amount to personal influence and he would be liable to be prosecuted under Section 9 of the PC Act,” said the draft drawn up by the probe agency which was informally shared with certain wings of government. An offence under the existing Section 9 of the PC Act is punishable with imprisonment for a term not less than six months but which may extend to five years as well as a fine.

The still-born provision was a direct fall-out of the coal scam case where former Law Minister Ashwani Kumar had called for the CBI status report --- due to be submitted in the to the apex court --- while officials of the PMO and Coal Ministry made changes to the status report. The SC had observed that the “the heart of the CBI report” was changed by these officials and asked the government to take immediate steps by July 10 to insulate the CBI from “external influences and intrusion”.

The government subsequently set up a GoM which submitted an affidavit in the SC last week, which the court will consider on July 10. The affidavit refers to a separate clause on “non-interference in investigation”, specifying that government shall not have any powers to ask CBI to investigate or dispose any case in a particular manner. “But what many CBI officers wished were for a penal provision to ensure if the interference happens and a situation like the coal case arises, there is a legal price to pay for the politicians or bureaucrats and the CBI should have the power to prosecute such officials on its own as every case is not a court-monitored probe like the coal scam. But CBI finally chose to back out on this,” a senior CBI official said.