Gauhati HC order: PM asks CBI not to encroach on policy calls

Assures CBI the Gauhati HC order questioning the agency's legalit would be looked into seriously and promptly

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday criticised the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for alleging criminal misconduct in administrative decisions taken with no ill intention within the prevailing policy as “flawed and excessive.”

Singh was addressing an  international conference on evolving common strategies to combat corruption and crime at Vigyan Bhavan.

Last month, the CBI had registered an First Investigation Report against industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and former coal secretary P C Parakh for the Talabira-II coal block allocation. The controversy had also roped in the prime minister as he also held the additional charge of the coal ministry then, for being the competent authority to take the final decision on the matter.

Singh said, “We can't be all the time just running down institutions of governance because there have been cases of wrongdoing.”

Singh assured the CBI the Gauhati High Court order questioning the agency’s legalit would be looked into seriously and promptly. “The government will do all that is necessary to establish the need for the CBI and its legitimacy, and protect its past and future work,” the prime minister said.

On the matter of autonomy, Singh made it clear that while autonomy in investigation is guaranteed, there is a distinction between “operational autonomy and the rules of oversight, supervision and control in organisational and institutional matters that are normal for public bodies of the Executive funded by public money.”

Singh said it would be worthwhile to introspect if the debate on autonomy should lose sight of the fact that the CBI and other investigating agencies are part of the Executive.