IANS/New Delhi
Finance Minister P Chidambaram yesterday said the description of the Central Bureau of Investigation as a “caged bird or the Congress Bureau of Investigation” was incorrect, and added the investigative agency must confine itself to policing and not question the laid-out policy.
Speaking at the CBI’s international conference on ‘Evolving Common Strategies to Combat Corruption and Crime’, Chidambaram cautioned the agency to respect the line that divides policy making and policing.
Chidambaram’s remarks came a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said it was not proper for probe agencies to sit in judgment over a policy decision taken in good faith.
Chidambaram also differed with the Supreme Court’s observations in May this year, describing the CBI as a “caged parrot.”
He said investigating agencies, including the CBI, should be constructed in new India on pillars of “clearly defined objectives, precisely enumerated powers and carefully designed accountability mechanisms.”
Chidambaram said an offence is committed when a prescribed rule of conduct is violated and if there is no prescribed rule or its violation, there is no offence.
“It is not the business of the investigative agency to lay down a rule of conduct; nor is it the business of the investigating agency to presume a rule of conduct,” the former home minister said.
Chidambaram said the investigative agency must confine itself to the question whether there has been a violation of a laid-down rule of conduct.
“Even where a rule has been prescribed, there is a policy behind that rule. It is not the business of the investigative agency to question the wisdom of that policy or to suggest a different policy that would be better in the view of the investigating agency,” he said.
Last month, the Prime Minister’s Office came under the lens after the CBI filed a fresh set of charges on the coal allocation case, this time finding fault with the actions of then coal secretary P C Parakh in allocating some blocks to private company Hindalco.
Both Parakh and the Prime Minister’s Office clarified later that the decision on the award of coal block to Hindalco, taken in 2004-05, was fair and taken in good faith and no ulterior motive was required to be attributed on the matter.