The CBI Bill, 2010, is awaiting legislation which could save it from becoming a history.
Union Law Minister Kapil Sibal and the UPA government as a whole are having a hard time. The reason is Guwahati High Court’s one verdict which can throw water on its long-standing motives.
Two days ago, a division of Guwahati High Court quashed April 1, 1963, resolution taken by the then home ministry which set up Central Bureau of Investigation. The interesting revelation through the 89 page judgment of the bench held that the CBI was illegal as it was neither established under Delhi Special Police Establishment Act (DSPE) Act, 1946, nor it was part of an organ o DSPE.
“We hold that CBI is neither an organ nor a part of the DSPE and that the CBI cannot be treated as a ‘police force’ constituted under the DSPE Act, 1946. We hereby also set aside and quash the impugned resolution (of the Union Home ministry) dated 01.04.1963, whereby CBI has been constituted,” the judgment said.
Late, however, the revelation is the verdict is absolute and right. But it is sending the UPA into a tizzy because CBI ceases to be a constitutional body and its power to probe cases becomes null and void.
The “caged parrot”, as CBI was always referred to until the move on it becoming autonomous riled up, has allegedly been used at and on government’s will at times. It was considered that once the case goes to CBI it can be manipulated easily by the government.
The CBI Bill, 2010, is awaiting legislation which could save it from becoming a history.
As reported in Indian Express, Congress’ own MP and then I&B Minister Manish Tewari had raised the issue in Parliament in 2009. In 2010, he had moved a Private Member’s Bill in the Lok Sabha stating that the CBI is not a legal body as it draws its powers from the DSPE whose legality is tenuous.
But the government did not wake up from its slumber till a writ petition was filed.
Of late, the CBI has been proving its critics wrong by delivering timely reports and its special court delivering unabated justice. Be it fodders cam verdict or investigations in Coalgate, the CBI has been doing a marvelous job.
The government has announced that it will file an appeal in the Supreme Court against the judgement. It is to be noted that when the government was asked to produce records relating to the creation of the CBI, it did not file the original record but produced a certified copy of records received from the National Archives. The failure of the central government in defending CBI till now gives less hope that it will be able to defend its establishment further.
The court has given CBI time to end its proceeding pending in CBI court but no new case should be registered.
Given the fact that its fate is pretty much sealed, the CBI should try to go down in the history not as a caged parrot but the one which delivered justice to the people of India in various scam cases it is probing.
Other thing which may happen is that the government may wrest with the issue in the winter session of the parliament or it may come up with another ordinance to save the CBI.
