Is the CBI free?

Is the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) truly autonomous? Very few believe that the country’s premier police investigative agency is free from political interference. Yet, somewhat paradoxically, more people seem to have greater faith in the ability of the CBI (more than state government police agencies) to prosecute offenders, particularly influential politicians, if not, at least, unearth relevant facts relating to the commission of crimes, including acts of corruption.

In the complex case relating to misallocation and undervaluation of second-generation telecommunications spectrum, the CBI has not just placed behind bars Andimuthu Raja, former Union minister for communications and information technology, Siddharth Behura, former secretary of the Department of Telecommunications, and R.K. Chandolia, an official who was close to Mr Raja, the agency has also taken into custody affluent builder Shahid Usman Balwa who controls Etisalat DB (formerly Swan Telecom). And that’s not all.
The CBI recently interrogated K. Kanimozhi, member of Parliament belonging to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), and her step-mother Dayalu Ammal, second wife of DMK head Muthuvel Karunanidhi. They were reportedly questioned in connection with the investments made by one of Mr Balwa’s companies in Kalaignar TV which is owned by members of the family of the Tamil Nadu chief minister.
So, is the CBI truly independent to pursue any line of inquiry it wishes to in the 2G spectrum scam and is it genuinely not afraid to accuse any individual it holds responsible for the scandal, no matter how important she or he might be in the current ruling dispensation?
If indeed the CBI today appears relatively autonomous in conducting its investigations — it has to submit a chargesheet in the spectrum case against certain “unknown” persons that had been registered in October 2009 by the end of March — the people of this country have to be especially thankful to the Supreme Court of India. After the public interest litigation in the 2G spectrum case (in which this columnist is one of the three petitioners) was dismissed by the Delhi high court, one could scarcely have imagined how proactively the Supreme Court would take the matter up and eventually monitor the CBI’s investigations.
In other words, the CBI may not have displayed the kind of autonomy it has so far if the highest court of the country had not prodded it to act expeditiously and independently. Interestingly, the fact that the CBI was acting under the directions of the Supreme Court was used by a section of the Congress Party to its advantage while negotiating for seats with the DMK in the run-up to the Assembly elections that have been scheduled for April 13. The CBI is expected to submit a status report on the spectrum case to the Supreme Court today.
Recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had suggested that one of the most important reasons why the government took as long as it did before ensuring that Mr Raja put in his papers — and action was taken against his allegedly criminal acts in depriving the national exchequer of huge amounts of money by manipulating the allocation of scarce and precious electro-magnetic spectrum to mobile telecommunications companies — was the “compulsions of coalition politics”.
Few were convinced by Dr Singh’s arguments because of the arithmetic involved. The DMK (the second-largest constituent of the ruling United Progressive Alliance coalition) has 18 members in the current Lok Sabha, whereas 34 members of the legislative Assembly of Tamil Nadu belonging to the Congress have been propped up Mr Karunanidhi’s government in Chennai. The obvious question that arises is whether the DMK needs the Congress more than the Congress needs the DMK.
The DMK was initially adamant on not giving 63 seats to the Congress in the forthcoming Assembly elections. In fact, the DMK ministers in the Union government had threatened to resign over the seat-allocation dispute.
This is not the first time that Mr Karunanidhi has sought to virtually blackmail the government in New Delhi to abide by his wishes — he had earlier acted in a similar manner and successfully arm-twisted the Atal Behari Vajpayee government as well as the second UPA government. In fact, many argue that Mr Raja’s appointment as the telecom minister for a second term in May 2009 was largely a consequence of the “politics of blackmail” mastered by Mr Karunanidhi.
The crucial difference on this occasion was that Mr Karunanidhi had to eat humble pie. His pressure tactics did not work, not with Congress president Sonia Gandhi nor the Prime Minister. The Congress stuck to its guns and, for a change, the DMK had to backtrack. The Tamil Nadu chief minister’s emissaries were clearly told that the Union government would not be able to ensure that the CBI would not interrogate Ms Kanimozhi and Ms Dayalu, something the DMK was clearly keen on avoiding before the elections. But that was not to be. The elderly head of the Tamil Nadu government and his party would be further embarrassed if names of members of the “first family” of the state find their way into the CBI’s chargesheet.
To return to the question that was raised earlier: Does the way in which the CBI has acted in investigating the spectrum scandal, under the direct supervision of the Supreme Court, suggest that the agency is basking in its new-found freedom? One would like to believe this is true, but it may be a bit too early to rejoice. Why? Information obtained through an application using the Right to Information Act filed by a news magazine indicates that during 2008 and 2009, the CBI was denied sanction by the Central government to prosecute 23 senior government officers (most of them above the rank of joint secretary) against whom charges of corruption had been investigated.

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is an educator and commentator