Centre must move to save the CBI’s blushes
Although the Supreme Court has stayed the Gauhati High Court's order deeming the very creation of the Central Bureau of Investigation as unconstitutional, the issues that the High Court has raised will not go away until the Union Government takes corrective measures. The fact that the CBI is for all purposes vested with the powers of a police force, is undeniable. Also not in dispute is the fact that the probe agency was established through an executive order and was, therefore, always open to challenge. The solution lies in Parliament considering the matter and giving the country's premier investigation agency an ironclad legal cover.
This alone can remove the fuzziness that surrounds the existence of the CBI. Parliamentary approval, and perhaps even a constitutional status, will also help in better insulating the probe agency from political interferences that have become the norm under the Congress-led UPA Government. Embarrassing as the High Court's ruling is, the Government must seize upon it as an opportunity to infuse the much-needed legal legitimacy to the probe agency. The ideal way for the Union Government to begin the task is to call for an all-party meeting and seek to hammer out a broad consensus so that an initiative in Parliament that follows the meet does not degenerate into a free-for-all on account of differences among the parties. The earlier the Centre does this the better it will be for the CBI. It can be safely assumed that all political parties will want the issue to be settled for good.
The investigation agency is in the midst of probing various politically sensitive cases and cannot afford uncertainty over its existence. It must be remembered that the Government has admitted to the Gauhati High Court that the agency indeed lacked legal status and that only an appropriate legislation can set the anomaly right. It must be remembered that Union Minister Manish Tewari had a couple of years ago questioned the legal status of the CBI and wondered what prevented the Government from bringing forward an enabling legislation to address the ambiguity. Given this, it is a wonder that senior Congress leaders and legal luminaries such as Union Minister for law and Justice Kapil Sibal are now “surprised” by the development. The High Court has gone strictly by the requirements of the law.
The Centre has through the years thoroughly mishandled the issue, never taking the matter with the seriousness it deserved. The writ petition over which the Gauhati High Court has passed its order, was being heard for six long years, and the Union Government did not in that period show any inclination to meaningfully intervene, leaving the CBI to defend itself. The Union Government ought to have realised that the issue was not just about the investigation agency's existence but the very legality of the executive order that created the CBI. The cart was placed before the horse. The Government of the day had established the CBI and left the enactment of an appropriate law for a later date. Ideally, the legislation should have preceded the formation of the agency. That nobody in the decades since then thought it necessary to plug the legal loophole before somebody decided to exploit it, is amazing.