A week after the UPA Government was severely reprimanded by the Supreme Court for influencing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the coal scam probe, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday constituted a Group of Ministers (GoM) to decide the plan of action to secure the functional autonomy of the investigating agency.
The GoM, headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, will consider the matter relating to an appropriate law being made to provide for the independence of the CBI and its functional autonomy. The GoM will prepare the draft law and also the draft affidavit to be filed in the Supreme Court in the context of its scathing remarks about CBI acting like a caged parrot.
It has Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, Minister of Communications and Information Technology and Minister of law and Justice Kapil Sibal, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions V Narayanasamy.
The GoM will be serviced by the Department of Personnel and Training which will ensure that agenda papers/minutes of the meeting etc are expeditiously forwarded to the Prime Minister’s office and the Cabinet, an official release said.