Centre146;s Bureau

We would have been delighted to agree with the prime minister when he states that his government has 8220;never interfered with the CBI in matters of investigation8221;. We would also have loved to believe him when he assures us that 8220;the autonomy of the CBI will be preserved in this government at all cost.8221; Unfortunately, it becomes very difficult to do this at the precise juncture when the CBI has executed a spectacular turnabout on the defreezing of Ottavio Quattrocchi8217;s London accounts. The Bureau now claims that Additional Solicitor General B. Dutta had embarked upon his infamous mission to unite Mr Q with his dubious bank account at its behest. This act of bailing out the Congress government from the sinking sands of Bofors, could well entitle the agency to rename itself the Centre8217;s Bureau of Investigation.

Unfortunately, the sudden turnabout of India8217;s premier investigative agency does not surprise. The CBI, which projects the word 8220;impartiality8221; as one of words that define it, has often allowed itself to function as the cats-paw of the government of the day, regardless of its political orientation. If it has waxed and waned on Bofors, depending on whether a Congress government was in power, or not; it has similarly gone on the offensive, or held itself back on the Babri Masjid demolition case, depending on whether the BJP presided in New Delhi, or not. The same lack of consistency marked its handling of numerous other politically sensitive cases over the years, whether it was the hawala scam years ago, or the Taj Corridor case, more recently. The bureau8217;s inherent lack of autonomy 8212; despite the fact that it is answerable ultimately only to Parliament 8212; saw even bit players like H.D. Deve Gowda deploy it for their games of political expediency. That they were undermining the credibility of an important institution did not apparently disturb them overmuch.

The CBI has on occasion risen to the great principle that its founder-director, D.P. Kohli, had underlined when he stated that 8220;loyalty to duty8221; first and foremost, everywhere, and at all times. But this show of professionalism has been largely confined to only those cases which did not have political vested interests embedded in them. If, for instance, Abu Salem had happened to have a godfather in power, chances are that he and Monica Bedi would have been in Lisbon at this very moment!