Editorial: Reign of caged parrots

It is an open secret that the NDA government has been blatantly misusing the central agencies as tools to target the opposition leaders and throttle the voices of dissent. As the Supreme Court had once described the Central Bureau of Investigation as ‘a caged parrot speaking in its master’s voice’, the credibility of the country’s […]

It is an open secret that the NDA government has been blatantly misusing the central agencies as tools to target the opposition leaders and throttle the voices of dissent. As the Supreme Court had once described the Central Bureau of Investigation as ‘a caged parrot speaking in its master’s voice’, the credibility of the country’s premier probe agency remains under a cloud. There has been a massive jump in the CBI cases against opposition leaders in recent times. Since the NDA came to power in 2014, at least 124 prominent politicians have been on the CBI’s radar so far, including 118 from the opposition parties, accounting for 95% of the total number. Compared to this, at least 72 political leaders faced CBI probes, of which 43 (60%) were from the opposition, during the UPA rule between 2004 and 2014. A similar pattern can be observed with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) cases. The fact that several opposition leaders have switched to the BJP in recent months, especially in Punjab and Goa, is worrisome as it is attributed to the prospect of ‘immunity from prosecution’. The misuse of central agencies like the CBI amounts to weakening the very foundations of the country’s constitutional and democratic framework. While the nationwide crackdown on corruption is welcome, it should not be dictated by a politically-motivated pick-and-choose approach. Under the UPA regime, the CBI was accused of initiating cases against potential allies of the Congress, such as the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, and then going slow on them after their support was achieved.

Under the present regime, the ED has drawn fire for allegedly going slow on cases against opposition politicians who switched to the saffron party. Though efforts have been going on since the 1990s to free the central law-enforcement agencies such as the CBI and the ED from the stranglehold of governments and political parties, they have not yielded desired results. Insulating the top investigating agencies from undue political influence should form an essential element of the much-needed police reforms in the country. The CBI has been rendered ineffective by the legal structure within which it functions, and also by the changes made by governments in the rules governing it. Over the years, these have progressively made the agency subservient to the union government. The work of the agency has been further constrained by the increasingly hostile relations between the Centre and the State governments. So far, nine States, most of them ruled by the opposition parties, have withdrawn general consent to the CBI. Withdrawal of consent means the CBI cannot investigate even a Central government employee stationed in a State without the consent of the State government. Under these circumstances, the judiciary has an important role to play here to rein in the Central agencies whenever they show overzealousness or high-handedness.

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