Supreme Court on its side, CBI plans to act fast

CBI not to need prior approval to probe corrupt govt officials

Over a dozen cases are piled on the desks of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sleuths as the required permission to question the government officials concerned could not be obtained. These officials are in the rank of joint secretary and above. That hurdle is now removed, with the Supreme Court verdict rendering the requirement for approvals to probe senior bureaucrats for corruption “invalid” and “unconstitutional”.

CBI says the move will “expedite a number of investigations”. This is a way towards greater operational autonomy for CBI, too. “It puts much more responsibility on us, that no innocent civil servant is harassed or prosecuted,” said CBI director Ranjit Sinha.

CBI is hoping to move fast on its National Spot Exchange probe. It wanted to question the chairman and managing director of MMTC in the case, but could not obtain permission from the commerce ministry. The agency had registered a case in the matter on March 13.

Of the cases pending approval, 66 per cent are registered complaints and the remaining ones are in the preliminary enquiry stage. The case where approval is pending for the longest time, since January 2013, is a railways-related probe. “We did not have a problem in seeking permission but to get it from the interested party itself is not fair to the probe. Instead, we proposed that a panel of Cabinet secretary, the department concerned and the CBI director should review such applications,” a senior official said.

In the past, investigations have been delayed for want of such permits in cases like the coal scam. The agency could not question H C Gupta, former coal secretary, in connection with the Jindal Steel and Power first information report for several weeks, as permission was denied, says CBI. Gupta was questioned after he stepped down from office as member of the Competition Commission of India.

There are more such examples, such as CBI wanting to question T K A Nair, advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and other joint secretaries at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in the coal block allocation scam. Later, CBI reached Nair through a written questionnaire.

According to the Prevention of Corruption Act, under Article 6A, CBI is supposed to seek the permission of the immediate senior bureaucrat when it wants to question an officer in the rank of joint secretary and above. For secretary rank officials, the go-ahead has to come from the minister concerned. No such permission is required by law to question a sitting minister.

However, the agency is supposed to inform the Speaker or the Chairperson of the House and the PMO if in the case where a Cabinet minister is involved. For instance, in the bribe-for-post scandal in the railways, CBI had approached the PMO before questioning then rail minister Pawan Kumar Bansal, who had to subsequently step down.

Next on the wish list of CBI is to hasten the prosecution sanction. “Government can sit on it for as long as it wants at present. If a deadline can be put to it, unnecessary delays won’t happen,” said a CBI official.