Investigative agencies like CBI have been turned into political instruments courtesy vendetta politics, no matter who's in power

In 2013, the Supreme Court described the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as a “caged parrot” that answers to “its master’s voice”. An irate judge made the statement during a hearing into the ‘Coalgate’ scam in 2013, at a time when the Congress government was increasingly accused of misusing the investigating agency to shield the corrupt and keep UPA coalition allies in line and political rivals at bay. Cut to 2019, and all that’s changed appears to be the party in power at the Centre. Using West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s three-day dharna as the platform, Opposition parties banded together to target the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), accusing the saffron unit of using investigation agencies under its ambit to meet its political ends. One does not need to be a government officer or a political insider to find suspicious the timing of the raids the CBI and Enforcement Directorate conducts nowadays. More often than not, we hear of raids at various locations with links to anti-BJP leaders soon after an Opposition show of strength. Take, for instance, the fact that Mamata’s ‘Save the Constitution’ protest in Kolkata was in reaction to the CBI turning up at the Kolkata police commissioner Rajeev Kumar’s home “unannounced” and “without a warrant” on Sunday, three weeks after she organised the ‘United India’ rally, at which dozens of national Opposition leaders came together against the BJP-led government at the Centre. [caption id=“attachment_5476431” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] But let’s revisit the UPA era for a bit. The CBI filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court on 13 April, 2010, saying it has “evidence to prove that Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati and her family members had acquired assets far exceeding their legal source of income”. Ten days later, the CBI told the court it “will need time to relook into the whole case” in view of the favourable orders income tax authorities passed. Four days later, 21 BSP MPs helped the UPA government breeze through the Opposition’s cut motions. Coincidence? The BJP didn’t think so. “The UPA government has, once again, misused the CBI as a political instrument for its own survival,” the party said. The BJP-led NDA government’s alleged misuse of central agencies has been so much in news that these allegations against the Congress-led UPA government are but nearly forgotten. “They did it first” is hardly an argument the BJP can make now to keep these past claims fresh in people’s minds. It seems that all the BJP can now do is unleash the agencies at their disposal to do their dirty work. When in doubt, order a raid, and the number of locations raided would be proportional to the degree of opposition the central government has faced. Two former CBI directors  told Reuters in 2013 that the agency is subject to political influence “irrespective of which party happens to be in power”. “The political class will never give independence to the CBI,” former director Joginder Singh said. Vijay Shanker, who was CBI chief between 2005 and 2008, echoed Singh’s view, saying there was “no question” that the agency faced immense political pressure.

Always caught in political battles, the CBI, in the process has forgotten its basic task — to catch criminals. The image it has in the public eye now is one of an agency that makes news only when there are politically-motivated allegations to prove, however baseless.

Some may say it’s too much of a stretch to allege that the use of central investigative agencies is the only weapon at the NDA government’s disposal, that it’s using these bodies to not only launch investigations against political rivals, but also suppress inquiries against its own leaders (the CBI’s silence on the Vyapam scam is quite loud; raids at Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s office amid the DDCA scam is not suspicious one bit; dozens of witnesses becoming hostile in the Shohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter mere happenstance. But the reality is right there in the open for everyone to see. Standard operating procedures seem a thing of the past, and central agencies are now quasi-political instruments to serve a political agenda of the powers that be. Furthermore, the focus now appears to be to ensure that any action, be it by the CBI, Enforcement Directorate or Income Tax Department, makes it to the headlines and succeeds in dealing a blow to the image of whoever is the latest target. To quote BJP MP Arun Jaitley: “Adventurism leads to media leaks, ruins reputations and eventually invites strictures and not convictions. In the process, the targets are ruined because of harassment, loss of reputation and financial costs. It costs people their career.”

The irony of such a statement coming from one of the BJP’s most senior leaders is not lost on readers not wearing saffron-tinted glasses. One could even say that Jaitley's remark  — made in the context of the CBI filing an FIR in the Videocon-ICICI Bank case naming industry bigwigs — gives the impression that two CBIs function under the NDA government: one that investigates ’normal’ cases and another that takes up cases with a political colour.

Jaitley even declared that CBI was indulging in “ investigative adventurism ”. Now that’s one subjective statement, given today’s state of affairs. According to the BJP leader “investigative adventurism involves casting the net too wide”; apparently just wide enough to include rivals, not influential names. “Professional investigation targets the real accused on the basis of actual and admissible evidences. It rules out fanciful presumptions. There is no personal malice or corruption. It targets the guilty and protects the innocent,” Jaitley said in his Facebook blog . Yes Jaitley_ji_. It would do our democracy well if all governments abided by these words.