Home ministers were steamrolled to gain control of CID by former CMs

Interpretation of allocation of business rules done to suit the interest of CMs, say officials

CHANDIGARH: A number of former Haryana home ministers in 80s and 90s were stripped of the charge of criminal investigation department (CID) without following due process by domineering chief ministers like Bansi Lal, Devi Lal and Om Prakash Chautala. And none seems to have protested, officials familiar with the past developments said.

Incumbent firebrand home minister Anil Vij, who is involved in a row with chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar over the control of CID, however, is an exception.

A perusal of notifications for allocation of portfolios previously brought out this fact.

A controversy had erupted about a fortnight ago when two government websites cited the chief minister as holding the charge of the CID, the intelligence arm of the state government. There was no notification issued by the government to make this change.

Vij was quick to say that that a mere mention on a website does

not divest him of the charge of the CID. “The CM has the authority to reallocate any department to a minister. But then, a process has to be followed to do so. The governor has to issue a notification on the advice of the chief minister to reallocate the department. There is none as of now,” the home minister had said.

POSSIBLE ARGUMENTS ADVANCED

The probable line of reasoning taken to exclude CID during earlier times was that the Business of the Haryana Government (Allocation) Rules, 1974, provided for assigning a single department to the charge of more than one minister.

“But then CID as per the Rules of Business, 1977, does not qualify as a standalone department. It is incorporated as a part of the home department. The Rules of Business framed under Article 166 of the Constitution have clearly spelt out that a department means a department specified in Business of the Haryana Government (Allocation) Rules, 1974. The Rules specify home, jails and administration of justice as three separate departments. But the CID has been mentioned as a part of the home department and so are the functions of security, intelligence including espionage and counter espionage which the state CID also performed,’’ said a former joint secretary, home.

› The rules specify home, jails and administration of justice as three separate departments. But the CID has been mentioned as a part of the home department and so are the functions of security, intelligence, including espionage and counter espionage.

A FORMER JOINT SECRETARY, HOME,