am Aadmi Party welcomes the long awaited judgement

The Aam Aadmi Party welcomes the long awaited judgement of the Supreme Court striking down the ‘Single Directive’, introduced by Section 6A of the CBI Act and also introduced in the CVC Act, which required the CBI to take the consent of the government even for beginning corruption investigations against government officials of the level of joint Secretary and above. This provision was introduced in 2003 in the CBI and CVC Acts by the NDA government even after the Supreme Court had declared the same ‘Single Directive’ as unconstitutional in the Hawala case in 1999. Both the NDA and the UPA governments had taken advantage of this absurd provision to protect senior Babus who were involved in corruption along with the Ministers themselves who in brazen conflicts of interest then denied permission for even investigating their Babus.

This judgement has come in a petition filed by Prashant Bhushan in 2003 on behalf of the Centre for Public Interest Litigation. The Supreme Court has held that this requirement of government permission for investigating high level corruption is promoting corruption and is also discriminatory since the Constitution prohibits discrimination between senior and junior public servants on issues of corruption. The court has also held that such a provision requiring the CBI to take government permission is also discriminatory in as much as the same corruption can also be investigated by the State Police which does not require any such prior permission. This will now free the CBI to investigate scores of corruption cases which are held up due to the non grant of permission by the government.

But despite this judgment, the CBI still remains a ‘Caged Parrot’, as the Supreme Court had put it. The CBI officers continue to remain under the adminstrative control of the government which decides their transfers, postings, promotions, suspensions, and most importantly, the post retirement jobs of senior CBI officers including the Director. No wonder then that the CBI is busy closing cases in most of the Coal Allotment cases and is very deliberately shielding the Ministers involved in the dishonest allocation of Coal Mines. Unfortunately, despite the overwhelming public opinion in favour of freeing the CBI from the adminstrative Control of the government and placing it under an independant Jan Lokpal, the Congress and the BJP ganged up to bring a lame Lokpal Act in which the CBI still remains under the adminstrative control of the government and the Lokpal (which will be selected by the political class) will be forced to rely upon government controlled agencies for its corruption investigation. It will take an electoral revolution in the country to free this ‘Caged Parrot’ from the control of those who themselves need to be investigated for corruption.”