‘Top officer had to wait 100 days to get a laptop’

These are a few examples cited by the CBI to the Supreme Court while pressing for a secretary-level status to its director so as to have more administrative and financial powers,lack of which it claimed adversely affects the efficacy and independence of its functioning.

Opposing the Centre’s resistance to grant the Union secretary status to its director,the CBI’s affidavit filed by advocate Amit Anand Tiwari has stated: “The sole purpose of the CBI in seeking powers beyond what has been granted to it presently,is to make its director more empowered to enforce and ensure more professional,efficient,expeditious and impartial conduct of CBI investigations.”

The CBI contended before the court that there is no rule which says that the Department of Personnel and Training shall control the CBI’s day-to-day affairs despite being attached to the department and sought power for operational autonomy.

“That the CBI is admittedly not a wing under the Department of Personnel and Training and the CBI’s proposal of its director directly reporting to the Minister Department of Personnel and Training is appropriate as it would remove the present anomaly of CBI despite not being wing of DoPT,is still controlled by the DoPT with Secretary DoPT being the reporting authority for the director,” it pointed out.

Along with other matters relating to the coal block allocation case,a Bench led by Justice R M Lodha will take up the response Tuesday.

CBI has also said its proposal for obviating the need for approval of the Law Ministry for appointment of special counsel should not be seen as empowerment of its director,rather as a step to reduce dependence over that ministry in such matters.

“It shall also mean compliance of the spirit of the directions of this Hon’ble Court regarding independence of the CBI investigations/prosecutions free of outside interference and influence. The CBI is merely asking to expedite the process of such appointments,” it maintained.

It also rejected the Centre’s charge that the CBI has been unable to spend even the allocated amount over past several years by calling it “erroneous and factually incorrect”.