CBI itself pretends to be 'helpless victim' when it pleads for more powers and greater autonomy
Legal Corner Icon — the image was hosted by the publisher and was not captured.THE CBI Director Ranjit Sinha welcomed the distinguished parliamentarian, brilliant lawyer and visionary Finance Minister of India, P. Chidambaram to address the CBI International Conference on “Evolving Common Strategies to Combat Corruption and Crime” yesterday. The CBI Director lauded the FM's in-depth knowledge of laws and immense capacity to lead from the front.
In a lighter vein, the FM said, sometimes the CBI itself pretends to be a “helpless victim” when it pleads for more powers and greater autonomy!
Policy Making vs Policing: The FM said,
"I would caution investigating agencies to respect the line that divides policy-making and policing. An offence is committed when a prescribed rule of conduct is violated. If there is no prescribed rule, or if there is no violation of a prescribed rule, there is no offence. It is not the business of the investigating agency to lay down a rule of conduct; nor is it the business of the investigating agency to presume a rule of conduct. Even where a rule has been prescribed, if there is a policy behind that rule, it is not the business of the investigating agency to question the wisdom of that policy or to suggest a different policy that would be better in the view of the investigating agency. The investigating agency must confine itself to the question whether there has been a violation of a laid-down rule of conduct.
One good test whether a rule of conduct has been wilfully violated is to ask whether there is a speaking order in support of the decision that is the subject matter of investigation. Ordinarily, a speaking order should be a complete answer to a criminal investigation. A speaking order may be right or wrong on the merits of the case, but as long as there are reasons given in support of a decision, such reasons should ordinarily rule out any criminal state of mind. Unfortunately, there are a number of cases where investigating agencies, and other authorities like the C&AG, have overstepped their limits and attempted to convert bona fide executive decisions into either crimes or abuse of authority."