Manmohan Singh gives ministers 3 weeks to churn out law for CBI autonomy

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has given five of his Ministers just three weeks to come up with an appropriate law to give independence to the CBI.


The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the Cabinet Secretariat will keep a hawk-eye on the meetings to be held by these Ministers for the exercise. As reported first by ET on May 9, the PM had decided to task his senior Ministers headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram to work on a draft law for the CBI that could be presented before the Supreme Court (SC) on July 10, the next date of hearing. The apex court on May 8 asked the government to come up with a law to give functional autonomy to the CBI or said it would do that exercise after July 10.

The government on Tuesday official announced constitution of a Group of Ministers (GoM) to consider making an appropriate law “for the independence of CBI and its functional autonomy”. CBI Director Ranjit Sinha, who will be a special invitee to the GoM, told ET that CBI expected clarity on its autonomy from this exercise. “We are not expecting full autonomy or constitutional status like Comptroller and Auditor General ( CAG) or Election Commission (EC) which is a long process. But we expect the new law to define our relationship with the political executive and give us functional autonomy,” Sinha said. The GoM could also ask for the views of the Central Vigilance Commissioner Pradeep Kumar while redrafting the CBI Act in line with the SC’s observations.

“The GoM will prepare the draft law and the draft affidavit to be filed in the Supreme Court, within three weeks. The GoM will be serviced by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT). The DoPT will ensure that agenda papers/minutes of the meeting etc. are expeditiously forwarded to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet Secretariat,” the Cabinet Secretariat said in an official statement on Tuesday.

Interestingly, all five ministers in the GoM can be construed as the ‘masters’ of the CBI. Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, Law Minister Kapil Sibal, Personnel Minister V Narayanswamy and Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid are part of the GoM.

While the Home Ministry dictates deputation of IPS officers to the CBI, the Personnel Minister decides on transfers and postings in CBI and co-ordinates with the Finance Ministry on fixing CBI’s annual budget. The Law Ministry decides on the law officers who will prosecute CBI cases while CBI depends on the foreign Ministry for processing its extradition and letter rogatory requests.