The Prime Minister today spoke at an international conference on “Evolving Common Strategies to Combat Corruption and Crime”.
The conference was organized by the CBI. He understandably spoke on the CBI.
Merely stating that autonomy in investigations is already guaranteed to the CBI is not enough. In actual practice, the UPA government has consistently interfered in the investigative process and made the CBI pliable.
However, the further comment of the Prime Minister sounds a danger. He said “We should be able to clearly distinguish between operational autonomy and the rules of oversight, supervision and control in organizational and institutional matters that are normal for public bodies and the executives funded by the public money”.
Does this supervision and control extend to a discretion in sanctioning the budgets required for investigations ?
Does it extend to selecting pliable officers before posting them in the CBI ?
Does it extend to recalling their deputation and removing inconvenient officers ?
Additionally, the UPA government by offering post-retirement jobs to all CBI Directors is influencing the pre – retirement conduct of the Directors.
Has it left any scope for operational autonomy ?