CBI forms panels to consider transfer, posting of officers

Prodded by the PMO, which is working overtime to fulfil Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s objective of a Zero Fault administration, the Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has constituted two establishment boards to consider the general transfer and posting of officers. The step was taken on Friday amidst multiple correspondences sent by serving CBI officers to the Prime Minister’s Office in recent times, pointing out that considerations other than merit were being applied to transfer officers of the agency.

Last week, this newspaper had published an article, “CBI mass transfers an eyewash, no official shifted out of Delhi”, quoting agency officials and documents that had raised questions on the mass transfer exercise that was undertaken by the CBI last week. In the order released on 11 October by CBI Director Rishi Kumar Shukla, two establishment boards have been constituted, Senior Establishment Board (SEB) and Junior Establishment Board (JEB) to handle transfer and posting of agency officers.

The SEB, which will deal with transfer and posting of officers above the rank of superintendent of police (SP) and above, will have five members—director CBI as the chairperson, Additional Director (currently the position is being held by Praveen Sinha), Director of Prosecution, Joint Director (Administration) and Joint Director (Policy).

The board has also been given the power to deliberate and decide on any requests, grievances that are received by officers who are not happy with the transfer. Similarly, the JEB, which will deal with transfer of officers of the rank of sub-inspector (SI), assistant superintendent of police (ASP), Law officers and ministerial staff, will have the senior most Joint Director ( JD) in the agency (other than JD, Administration) as the chairman, Deputy Director (Administration) as the secretary, DIG-SU (which is the CBI’S intelligence wing and is associated with conducting electronic surveillance and snooping) , SP, CBI (EO-II) and Assistant Legal Advisor (ALA) that will be nominated Director of Prosecution. The transfer and posting of officers of the rank of Constable, assistant sub-inspector (ASI), Lower Divisional Clerk and Upper divisional clerk will be decided by Deputy Director of Administration.

With this system in place, CBI officers believe that the victimisation of officers in the hands of senior officers, who used transfer and posting as a mechanism to punish honest officers, will come down.

“The fact that the PMO has taken cognizance of representations made by relatively junior officers and address their genuine concerns shows that the PMO is not going to go just by what some top officers tell the PMO. This recent step has also caused an alarm at some in the top level of the agency as now they know that they cannot go away with taking whimsical steps based on their personal feelings and needs,” a mid-level CBI officer told The Sunday Guardian.