CBI’s image of super-cop takes a beating

In the late 1980s Malayalam film actor Mammootty starred in a series of crime thrillers donning the role of a CBI sleuth. An audience that had till then been brought up on a steady diet of tear-jerkers and slapstick comedy in equal measure lapped up this new genre with great appetite. But even as the movies were great successes at the box office, they also sent a popular message to the average Malayali that the CBI, or the Central Bureau of Investigation, can solve cases that were seemingly unsolvable by the local police by closely observing the scene of the crime as well as the body language of those under investigation. Though it also gave rise to a number of spoofs as well, India’s premier investigating agency became a matter of pride in most movie-going households in Kerala.

And if Kerala, the state with the highest literacy and best social and demographic indicators in the country, can be swayed by the CBI, even after providing for artistic freedom that cinema enjoys in copious measures, can the rest of India be far behind? The CBI, for all practical purposes, is the last word as far as crime solving is concerned and you can trust the CBI for its motto which is: “industry, impartiality and integrity.” That, at least, has been the presumption.

That image of the super-cop with the magnifying glass out to prove the truth has taken a beating lately thanks to some very doubtful - some would even say shady - encounters that the chief of the organisation has had in his own home with a number of persons of suspicious backgrounds.

Activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan has approached the Supreme Court seeking dismissal of CBI Director Ranjit Sinha for meeting several people - some as many as 70 times - who were being investigated by his agency. What is of particular significance is the fact that in most of these meetings the investigating officer (IO) was not present, leaving it to conjecture what transpired behind those closed doors.

Sinha has been all at sea trying to explain why he met these people. First he claimed that the entries in the log-book maintained by his security detail at the gate were wrong. Then he said the entire log-book was forged. Both claims should have been inquired into. And who else but Sinha himself was the best man to institute that inquiry.

But Sinha changed his tack soon. He said that while some of these people were his family friends and these meetings were general social calls, others who had been cited had come to “present their side of the story” in the investigations against them. Both these arguments are somewhat specious.  

Former director Joginder Singh says this is one post where social calls and friendship circles have no place. And meeting someone to hear his side of the story in the absence of the IO has two implications: either the IO is not impartial in his inquiries and, therefore, needs to be kept out or there is something that the director and the investigated person want the IO not to know. In both instances the CBI and its director do not cover themselves in glory. And giving the other side of the story over 70 sittings! Not even film scripts of the CBI variety would take that long!

Sinha’s tenure at the head of the CBI since he assumed that office in November 2012 has been marked by controversies of a very serious nature. The CBI had instituted inquiries into some high-profile corruption cases, including against industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, former coal secretary P C Parakh as well as former Sebi chairman C B Bhave, only to withdraw them meekly citing lack of evidence. Lately Sinha’s department has raised questions over the sale of a government-owned hotel in Rajasthan 12 years after the event and this has brought further criticism for the agency. Last year the CBI was at the receiving end when the Supreme Court described it as “a caged parrot” as it allowed the Manmohan Singh government to dictate terms to it even to the extent of letting then law minister Ashwani Kumar and other PMO officials vet its report on the coal scam.  

As criticism of his conduct grew and newspapers began calling for his resignation, Sinha threw up his hands in despair saying, “I am under fire from all sides.” That’s hardly the inspirational leadership that his subordinates would expect from their chief. A T N Seshan (Election Commission) or a Vinod Rai (CAG) would have had none of that stuff. In the absence of such a leader, the CBI needs further introspection as to where it is headed. Other independent arms of the government like the Vigilance Commission as well as the home ministry itself could lend a helping hand in restoring the image of India’s premier investigating agency. For, without effective and impartial investigation, dispensation of justice would not be possible. Democracy will suffer. The nation will be the loser. And it will be a shame if the CBI cannot even inspire the box office in the years to come!

Is bureaucracy really energised?

One of the first acts of Narendra Modi on assuming the prime minister’s office was to call all secretaries to the federal government to a meeting and ask them to make presentations on their respective departments, the work they had accomplished till date and the problems they were facing in implementing their programmes. The meeting, which lasted nearly three hours, also gave Modi a chance to send the message to India’s top bureaucrats that he expected prompt and decisive action on all fronts. He wanted the bureaucracy to be “energised.”

That was on June 4. Newspapers and television channels gave wide coverage to this meeting and the following days saw reports of how there was large-scale cleaning of desks and corridors of various government ministries. It was also reported that Modi, who gets to work sharp 9am, either at his home office at 7 Race Course Road or at his PMO in Raisina Hill, has managed to instil similar promptness in his officialdom as well.

All this, you would think, has jumpstarted a bureaucracy that had gone into a deep slumber for nearly a decade under the oversight - or lack of it, to be precise - of a PMO that seemed to be happy to be remote-controlled. You could well be wrong, if the following (true) story is anything to go by:

Zohra Sehgal is a name that had adorned Indian theatre - classical as well as modern - and cinema for six decades. She had received not one but three Padma awards- the Padma Shree, the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan - besides several accolades from central, state and foreign cultural organisations.

For the last three or four years of her life Sehgal, who did not own a house of her own and was living with her daughter in a third floor apartment in a South Delhi colony, had been confined to a wheelchair. Though physically challenged, Sehgal was quite alert mentally but was being confined to her room without much fresh air. So she approached the Delhi government in 2011 with a request to allot her a ground floor flat - “just two bedrooms would suffice” - from any of the plethora of discretionary quotas that were available to the powers that be.

That was three-and-a- half years ago. Sehgal died nearly two months ago at the age of 102. Last week an under-secretary in the Urban Development Ministry (Venkaiah Naidu is the minister in charge) wrote to the vice-chairman of Delhi Development Authority asking him to look into Sehgal’s request!

The wheels of India’s bureaucracy are infamous for their sloth. Prime Minister Modi is aware of this. And he is trying his best to change it, energise it. But then, with Indian bureaucracy the more things change the more they remain the same. Zohra Sehgal’s unfulfilled wish to live in a ground-floor flat is testimony, if any is needed.