Modi government does not interfere in CBI affairs: Naidu

The Narendra Modi government does not interfere in the functioning of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as it is an "independent body", Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said on Wednesday.

Clearing the air on the issue of CBI searches at 14 places in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, the minister said in the Lok Sabha that the central government had nothing to do with these raids.

"A friend was talking to me and he suggested that we must have taken the fact into account that parliament session was on and could have decided about the raids later," Naidu said, adding that he then told him that the "CBI does not see whether the session was on or not".

"It's an independent body. It would not wait for a 'muhrat' (auspicious time) to do its work," the minister said.

Naidu was responding to Trinamool Congress member Sudip Bandyopadhyay, who demanded an inquiry into the CBI searches at the Delhi secretariat.

Reiterating that Delhi chief minister's office was not searched, Naidu said: "Let nobody obstruct it and the law would take its own course."

"The government is very clear (on CBI). We don't interfere in its work," he added.