Power to truth

In 2004,as the Taj Heritage Corridor case was being investigated,the CBI said it had another watertight case against Mayawati Rs 20 crore worth of unexplained assets. But a few months later,as the Congress-Samajwadi Party relationship curdled,Mayawati was seen as politically useful and the Taj corridor case was dropped. However,the disproportionate assets case continues to dog her,especially at points of stress between her and the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre. That amount had apparently swelled to Rs 50 crore by 2007. But this April,just as the BSP rescued the government from a cut motion,income tax authorities suddenly cleared Mayawati of all charges,and the CBI also showed every indication of letting the matter go. However,now that the government is in the clear,and Mayawati is not a facilitator but once again an opponent,the CBI has obligingly flipped around again.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has been the governments little helper,no matter how momentous the events under investigation. Mulayam Singhs disproportionate assets seem to shrink and loom depending on which side of the UPA his party is on though the CBI was pursuing the case furiously,it swerved around after the SP bailed out the UPA in the July 2008 confidence motion. Perhaps the most memorable display of the CBIs political pliability is the two-decade-old Bofors scandal,often making arguments it had itself contested and gradually loosening the noose around Ottavio Quattrocchis neck. Its word on Jagdish Tytler and the 1984 riots has wobbled over and over again. And though the Congress is overwhelmingly culpable in making the CBI a ventriloquists dummy,it has been just as open to manipulation by the NDA. It shielded L.K. Advani from the heat over Babri Masjid in 2003,only to sheepishly explain its actions to the Congress a few months later.

The CBI is possibly the starkest example of the political undermining of Indias public institutions. In the 1997 hawala case,the Supreme Court explicitly reminded the CBI of its statutory freedoms,its insulation from government pressure but it has continued to drag its feet in cases that involve the powerful,ensuring that high-stakes matters of crime and corruption go unpunished. For that matter,Indias premier investigative agency has not been able to get a fix on the Noida teenager Aarushis murder,two years back. The CBIs complicity has often been taken for granted. But its time to ask whether it is now surpassing its own record in subservience to its political masters.