lending wings to the “caged parrot”, the Supreme Court on Tuesday strengthened the hands of the CBI to inquire and investigate corruption crimes against senior bureaucrats in court-monitored investigations.
The court relaxed the restriction on CBI under Section 6A of Delhi Special Police Establishment Act to seek prior approval of Centre to inquire or investigate an officer above Joint Secretary, limited to court-monitored probes alone. The court, however, did not touch upon the validity of the said provision, as this was pending before another bench of the apex court.
A three-judge bench of Justices RM lodha, Madan lokur and Kurian Joseph said, “We hold that the approval of the Central Government was not necessary under Section 6A of the DSPE Act in a matter where inquiry or investigation into the crime under the Prevention of Corruption Act is being monitored by this court. This position holds good in cases which are directed by the court to be registered and the investigation thereon is actually being monitored by this court.”
The agency had faced tremendous difficulties in probing role of top level Government officers in high profile scams such as 2G and coal scam. The agency argued for this restriction to go as according to it when a constitutional court monitors a probe, there is no scope of abuse as any vexatious or frivolous complaint against the Government servant can be weeded out. Moreover, the officer could have recourse to agitate in court against such action.
Dispelling the Government’s concern espoused by Attorney General that removing the Section 6A bar could lead to officers being harassed and discourage them from taking independent and bold decisions, the order by Justices lodha and Joseph said that in seldom cases only a constitutional court steps in after spotting hindrance in probe or laxity on part of agency to investigate fairly.
“The fact that investigation is monitored by the constitutional court is itself an assurance that investigation/inquiry by the CBI is not actuated with ulterior motive to harass any public servant and the investigating agency performs its duties and discharges its responsibility of fair and impartial investigation uninfluenced by extraneous considerations,” the order said.
Justice lokur who wrote a separate order shared the concern that non-grant of sanction to CBI would result in the investigation being held up. He said, “If the time lines are not adhered to, it is unlikely that the CBI, in the absence of any realistic functional autonomy, will be able to press the Central Government beyond a point for expeditious approval for investigating an offence against a senior Government official.”
“The biggest loss that may occur to the nation due to corruption is loss of confidence in the democracy and weakening of rule of law,” said the bench, adding that court-monitoring in a matter of huge magnitude such as the coal scam would aid expeditious investigation without fear or favour. Thus, it held Section 6A to be an “injunction” to the executive and not to a constitutional court monitoring an investigation under Article 32 of the Constitution.