New Delhi: There is an urgent need to empower the CBI with a distinct mandate of keeping an ‘arm’s-length’ relationship with the government, according to former Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai.
Vinod Rai is also of the view that the CBI seems to be becoming a ‘handmaiden’ to investigate, if not intimidate and the onus is now on the present government to cut its losses and set about ensuring that it is not held guilty of allowing the credibility of these institutions to hit rock-bottom during its tenure.
Vinod Rai, the former IAS officer has come out with a book titled ‘Rethinking Good Governance: Holding to Account India’s Public Institutions’. In the book he stresses how important these institutions are to serve as the pillars supporting the foundation of a robust and vibrant democracy.
From numerous occasions when MPs failed to adhere to the decorum expected of lawmakers in the House, the serious deficit of impartiality and integrity within the CBI, to the issue of governance that has plagued the BCCI, and the imbroglio around the perceived lack of cohesion between the government and the RBI, Rai claims that such instances led to a gradual decline of the independence and autonomy of these institutions over the decade.
Rai has suggested in the book that the role of prosecutors in the CBI needs overhauling as the agency does not have a very encouraging track record of successful prosecution, especially in high-profile cases.
“Often, the director of prosecution plays a secondary role and gets swamped by the same political allegiances that bedevil the director of the organisation, especially when the director gets the appointment after lobbying and hence ab initio starts with an ‘I owe you’ tag,” Vinod Rai writes in the book published by Rupa.
Rai has also said that increasingly, there is a decline in the professional capability of officers being appointed to the agency with a preference for ‘loyal’ persons. “This has become a dangerous trend, resulting in prosecutions proving to be increasingly faulty,” Rai has said.
According to Rai, accountability institutions that form the foundational pillars of any democracy seem to be losing their structural strength. “That is probably the reason an otherwise decisive government did not see or, if it saw, did not act on early warning signs. The CBI seems to be becoming a ‘handmaiden’ to investigate, if not ‘intimidate’. The onus is now squarely on the government to cut its losses, and, wielding the hammer, set about ensuring that it is not held guilty of allowing the credibility of these institutions to hit rock-bottom during its tenure,” Rai has further said.
“Considering that the agency seems to be the final port of call for any major act of crime or corruption, there is an urgent need to arm it with a distinct mandate of keeping an ‘arm’s-length’ relationship with the government. This should be genuine and not undertaken merely for visibility purposes,” Rai has added.
On Parliament, Rai has stated in the book that the challenges faced by it are immense.
“Instruments that the Parliament can use for accountability, such as motions on the floor of the House, the quality of debate and the committee system, are increasingly being rendered ineffective and dysfunctional,” Rai has pointed out.
PTI