What was started as a Special Police Establishment within the Central government police forces and set up in 1941 by the Government of India to investigate bribery and corruption in the War and Supplies Department acquired its present popular name - Central Bureau of Investigation - through a Home Ministry resolution dated April 1, 1993.
It had no doubt established itself as the foremost investigation agency invested with powers to investigate crimes of interstate and International ramifications. The CBI is the country’s Unit for the International Police Organisation. The Supreme Court and a number of High courts in the country also began assigning investigation of a special nature to the CBI on the basis of petitions filed by aggrieved parties.
The CBI grew with the vision and farsightedness of the first Director, Mr. V.P.Kohli, who nurtured it earlier as IG for the Special Police Establishment from 1955-63 and later from 1963 to 1968 as its first Director. Its stature rose under his outstanding leadership.
Again, we have had such outstanding leaders like F.V.Arul and C.V. Narasimhan of Tamil Nadu cadre and the likes of V.R. Lakshminarayanan and C.L. Ramakrishnan also of the state cadre, in CBI.
Over a period of time the CBI has been losing its credibility, certainly because of the tainting of the organisation by political shadows, both in the selection of personnel and day-to-day governance. Any number of instances can be quoted. The most recent one which was come out in the open is a classic example of the CBI losing its credibility with both the Director and the Special Director being asked to go on leave, making the CBI a national laughing stock.
This calls for a serious thinking on selection, first of its Directors and then the monitoring agencies. As it is, the selection of the CBI Director is made by a committee consisting of the Prime Minister as the chairperson, the Leader of the opposition, Chief Justice of India or a Supreme Court Judge as recommended by the CJI as a member.
I think this practice should be thrown out and replaced by a committee consisting of the Chief Justice of India, Chairman of the Union Public Service Commission and a Member as recommended by the CJI. The monitoring of investigations should be done by this committee only.
In short, the CBI must be made independent of the Government of India. It is the only way we can avoid political shadows touching the organisation.
Unless this is done, the CBI, once looked upon by both the general public and governments as the ultimate agency to handle investigations and ferret out the truth, will suffer this crisis of credibility for years to come.
