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Journalism of Courage
Government moves to take back initiative on CBI reform. But only Parliament can shape the final law
Prodded sharply by the Supreme Court,the government is now considering how the CBI can be insulated from political interference. A group of ministers headed by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram will brainstorm and draft a law to be submitted before the Supreme Courts next hearing. The CBIs pliability,and the fact that ruling parties have made cynical use of its investigations,is an open secret. But CBI reform assumed great urgency after the revelation first reported in this paper that the agency had shared its confidential report on coal block allocation with the law minister and other officials at their urging,even incorporated their changes. The courts hurry may come from a desire to see the CBI uncaged,but that should not force the government to push through a hasty or underthought bill. The law deserves fine-grained consideration by the political executive and a full debate in Parliament.
The moral of this episode is not that the agency will do better if prised totally out of the governments control,or that it needs to be set completely free. This is a moment for clear thinking,for drawing the lines in such a way that the CBI remains accountable through the democratically elected executive,yet also has operational independence.
