Time to wind up the CBI?

Too often used for partisan purposes

The Central Bureau of Investigation stands thoroughly exposed after dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar were acquitted in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case. The Allahabad high court’s castigation of the way the CBI conducted the probe was way beyond inefficiency. It had gone into the case with preconceived notions of guilt, to justify which it planted evidence, vetted testimonies and tutored witnesses, thus subverting the process of arriving at the truth. Conceived as a specialised unit like the FBI in America, capable of tackling inter-state crime and financial skullduggery, the CBI in reality is seen to act only in predetermined ways, subject to prevailing political winds. Derisively called a “caged parrot” by a Supreme Court judge, it has been felled by its motivated approach and by going soft professionally.

The primary question that arises each time the CBI is in the crosshairs of the public eye is whether there is reasonable justification for it to exist in its present form. Should the agency be dismantled and a whole new approach formulated for it to be the watchdog over interstate rackets, financial scandals, etc, rather than be chasing sensational murder cases? It might be a bit late though for the CBI to reform, which would be contingent on the country finding an impossible bipartisan balance so crucial to mending institutions.