Freed from the government, the CBI must be accountable to the Parliament

The Hon’ble Supreme Court’s avian analogy does not quite capture either the reality of the relationship between the Central Bureau of Investigation ( CBI) and the government or what it ought to be. While the court refrained from naming anyone in the government or passing strictures against them, it suggested that the heart of the report was changed on the suggestion of government officials. This seems like hyperbole.

Finally, the apex court has sought the CBI’s independence from the government. This again is a prescription that transgresses into the legislature’s domain and is oblivious of the reality that in many parts of the world, the struggle is to establish, rather than remove, civilian oversight over security/police/agencies. By disclosing to the court the changes made at the instance of government functionaries in two draft reports, the CBI shows not so much pliant willingness to be manipulated as its readiness to be accountable to the court.

Does that make the court its master? Nor does its action against the rail minister’s close relatives indicate a master-slave relationship with the government. A CBI that is truly independent, does investigations and chooses to prosecute or not prosecute for reasons it determines on its own could easily turn rogue. To insulate the CBI from unwanted interference, it must be accountable to multiple institutions, rather than to none: the government, the courts, a committee of Parliament and the human rights watchdog. And this is for Parliament to decide.

A line was added by the law minister to the effect that there had been no guidelines for allocation of captive mines, since 1993. This is factually correct. Since this state of affairs continued, does removal of specific mention of absent weightages and broad sheets remove the heart of the investigation? The coal scam stems from policy failure: inefficient state monopoly, necessitating captive mining. The point, ultimately, is to remove this.