NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – A packed New Delhi courtroom sat in rapt silence this week as an irate Supreme Court judge denounced the elite Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s version of the American FBI, as a “caged parrot” and “its master’s voice”.
Justice R.M. Lodha loudly berated the attorney-general, the government’s top lawyer, for what he said was clear evidence of interference in a CBI inquiry into alleged irregularities in the allocation of coalfield licences to private companies, a case dubbed “Coalgate” by the Indian media.
The Supreme Court judge’s statement gave, for the first time, an authoritative voice to opposition complaints that for years India’s Congress party-led government had been using the investigating agency to cover up wrongdoing, keep fickle coalition allies in line and political opponents at bay.
Government ministers and the CBI have repeatedly denied such accusations.
“The CBI conducts all investigations in a free, fair and impartial manner as per the law,” said CBI spokeswoman Dharini Mishra.
The judge’s unusually harsh criticism has shone a spotlight on the role of the CBI – which has a mandate to investigate corruption and all major crimes – and its relationship with governments of the day in the world’s largest democracy, in particular the nine-year-old Congress government, which has been battered by a series of corruption scandals.
It has given ammunition to anti-corruption campaigners who say political interference in the CBI reinforces the need for an independent anti-graft body that can investigate corruption involving government officials. Legislation to set up such an agency is stalled in parliament.
Two former CBI directors told Reuters that the agency was subject to political influence, irrespective of which party happened to be in power at the time.
“The political class will never give independence to the CBI,” said former director Joginder Singh, who says he was forced out after refusing to back off from an investigation into a chief minister of the eastern state of Bihar in the 1990s.
Vijay Shanker, who was CBI director between 2005 and 2008, said there was “no question” that political pressure was brought to bear on the agency, although he declined to say whether he had personally experienced such interference.
The CBI, which proudly proclaims its motto to be “Industry, Impartiality and Integrity”, has denied the latest allegations and said the government made only minor changes to a confidential progress report on its Coalgate investigation. Not so, said Judge Lodha. The “heart of the report” had been altered, he thundered at a hearing on Wednesday.
