Nov 22, 2024
Nov 22, 2024
Miss Mamata Banerjee has accused Mr. Narendra Modi’s government of misusing the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as an instrument of state policy to target political opponents. Miss Banerjee is presently under the scanner for her party’s alleged role in the Saradha Chit Fund scam. However that should be no reason to discount her allegation. After all, her charge has been recurring in public discourse for years. It provided the rationale for a nationwide demand to create the office of a Jan Lokpal to restore the CBI’s credibility. The brazen misuse of CBI by successive governments to either harass or protect politicians becomes evident from the flip flop displayed while dealing with various corruption cases. Two examples should suffice.
The Supreme Court had ordered a CBI inquiry on March 1, 2007 into the alleged accumulation of disproportionate assets by Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav’s family acting on a PIL filed by advocate, Mr. Vishwanath Chaturvedi. In 2013 Mr. Yadav had extended outside support to Congress led UPA government. Predictably before the 2014 general election the CBI closed the disproportionate assets case. CBI sources claimed they were satisfied by Mr. Yadav’s explanation. Had Mr. Yadav been rewarded for past support? After the closure of the case Mr. Chaturvedi bitterly said: “I knew that this will happen.” What can courts do if the prosecution deliberately weakens evidence in a case?
Over one-and-a-half years after the disproportionate assets case against BSP chief Miss Mayawati was quashed the Supreme Court issued notice to her and the CBI on a plea for registering a fresh FIR against her. The court said CBI got wrong advice after the apex court quashed the earlier FIR on technical grounds. “We expected that CBI should have got proper advice and acted on that basis.” The court has referred to its 2012 verdict by which it had quashed the case against Miss Mayawati on technical grounds. It left the CBI the option to lodge a fresh case. Every decision is taken on technical grounds of course. Alas, the CBI sometimes is technical and sometimes it is not.
There is no guarantee that the cases against Mr. Mulayam Singh or Miss Mayawati will not revive again. Keep the swords hanging over politicians? That seems the name of the game.
The nation is demanding a Lokpal to stem the rot. It is a useless proposal. In the final analysis the Lokpal will be selected and remain accountable to the very class which needs to be probed. There is only one office insulated from daily politics, only one office with a nationwide mandate, only one office that cannot be probed but only impeached by parliament and only one office granted power by the Constitution to be the ultimate defender of the law and constitution. That is the President of India aided by Governors directly accountable to Rashtrapati Bhawan. When will our political class and media recognize this truth and introduce necessary reform?
22-Dec-2014
More by : Dr. Rajinder Puri
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Here is the link Mr. Puri - http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150101/jsp/opinion/story_6084. Are you following what is happening in Bengal? |
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Sorry Mr. Puri, I have to join issues with you. In this particular case I couldn’t avoid it. Your point is so well known that it bears no repetition. In this case to repeat it is to argue in favour of someone who has done the greatest harm not only to the Bengalis but also to the Indian polity as a whole. Please read the article from which I quoted earlier – it was published in the Telegraph on 1st January. And you perhaps know that the CBI has been acting on orders from the Supreme Court where the WB Govt reportedly spent about 11 crores to stall the CBI proceedings. To argue in favour is very paying, isn’t it Mr. Puri? The lawyers made a killing – it is very mouth-watering indeed! |
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Dear Kumud Biswas, you seem to have missed the point of my article. Mamata''s guilt is beyond doubt. But her charge that the CBI is misused by successive governments as an instrument of either repression or protection is valid. Rajinder Puri |
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Here is an extract from a newspaper article which Mr. Puri may like to read. I wish he could write articles like this. ''For those who live in Bengal, the most remarkable feature of the year just gone by has been the evaporation of hope. The promise of change had brought with it hope. There has been change, since nothing, especially history, ever stands still. But the change has produced the destruction of hope, since the changes that have occurred are all for the worse, pulling Bengal, it seems, into a bottomless pit of bad governance, corruption and criminality. What is ironic is that the same individual who had heralded change and infused hope is also at the helm in the process of decline and despair. Her name is Mamata Banerjee. Her political career has been meteoric. She fashioned herself as the sole spokesman and leader against the rule of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The latter''s misgovernment and the use of State and cadre sponsored violence allowed her the space and the opportunity to position herself as the harbinger of change and of hope. She walked into power with a massive mandate from the people. This overwhelming popular support added substance to her call for change. She had the support and the political goodwill to bring about change. In the euphoria of success and the relief of removing the CPI(M), only a handful of people pointed to the dark side of the moon. In the short time she has been in power, it is the dark side that has become more and more prominent, so much so that many people have begun to doubt if there ever was an illuminated side. The lack of governance, the abuse of power, the complete intolerance of dissent, violence, the use of foul and abusive language, the pampering of minorities to cultivate a vote bank, the open and shameless disregard of the rule of law and an escalating scale of corruption - these are the hallmarks of the regime of Mamata Banerjee. And the regime is bolstered by ministers, bureaucrats and police officers who are supine''. |
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Beautiful comment on a foolish blog. |
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Rajinder Puri is generous to give Mamata Banerjee the benefit of doubt, without bothering to look at the other angle. Mamata Banerjee's statements vis-avis the Saradha group scam are reckless and intemperate outbursts. How can she fume that it is Modi's political vendetta when the Saradha scam had surfaced during the Congress-led UPA regime itself? Didn't the SEBI and the RBI see through the fishiness of the group, and wasn't her own government forced to appoint a judicial commission - well before the present BJP government came to power? She is accusing the CBI of being a political tool in the hands of the BJP and has enthusiastically mentioned the Supreme Court for pulling up the CBI for its dubiousness. But isn't she glossing over the fact that the same court had ordered the transfer of the cases to the CBI, well before Modi came to power? Jittery that the thick liaison between Saradha and the TMC coterie is being bared day by day, she is trying to clutch at every straw in a bid to save herself. If she sees every move against the Sharada scam as a move against her, her party and her government - why did she then attend the Nehru meet organised by the very Congress party (Nov 14, 2014) - whose finance minister Chidambaram had earlier questioned the Saradha deals himself - and which had provoked her to charge him with political vendetta and dash out from her alliance with the same Congress? If Mamata is so sure about the BJP government using the CBI as a political tool to crush her, why can't she move the Supreme Court about it? In fact, there is every possibility that the Supreme Court could eventually be obliged to order clamping of President's rule in West Bengal if she continues with her anarchic tantrums and wild allegations against the Centre? She is under a delusion that street fights are her legitimate judiciary. If so, let her remember that the opposition parties too could adopt the same type of tactics against her rule. |