As the CBI targets one politician after another, questions are raised about the role of the country’s premier investigating agency.
This story was first published in the SUNDAY issue of 18-24 February 1996
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Vijay Rama Rao has made 1996 a memorable year. In January, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) headed by Rama Rao, charge-sheeted ten politicians in the Jain Havala case. Half-way through February, two more charge-sheets were served on former Congress minister Kalpnath Rai and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Brij Bhushan Saran Singh. The charges against them: harboring underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s hitmen.
At the time of going to press, unconfirmed rumors were doing the rounds in the capital that Union external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee’s house had been raided by the bureau. The threat of a second batch of Havala charge-sheets still looms large. No one knows which old case may be revived and who is next in line. After a long slumber, the CBI has gone into action and there is an air of suppressed panic in Delhi.
Politicians were no longer sensitive to charges of corruption: one took sobriquets like ‘Sab ke sab chor hain’ with sporting acknowledgement. But this was the first time that charges of corruption against such a wide spectrum of politicians — from khadi to saffron — were being brought to court. Worse, Kalpnath Rai and Brij Bhushan Singh — charged under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) and with non-bailable warrants issued against them— faced the very real prospect of a long tenure in jail.
The CBI had been sitting on the Havala case for five years and on the bomb blast confessions for over two years. So what has spurred this sudden flurry of activity? Has the CBI finally found the courage to fulfil its brief: to act against corruption in public life? Or has it become an open co-conspirator in campaigns of political vendetta? And what of Vijaya Rama Rao? Did this make him one of CBI’s most efficient and courageous directors? Or one of its most pliant chiefs? Or is he just being buffeted by circumstances he could not control?
In short: is this the CBI's finest hour or is it its darkest?
The Irony
It is an irony that such questions should arise at all. The first reaction, after the Havala charge-sheets were filed, was that at long last, some action was being taken on the issue of political corruption. The more optimistic felt that ministers and politicians would now think twice before accepting bribes and doling out undue favors.
The Kalpnath Rai and B.B. Saran Singh charge-sheets dealt with an even more sordid episode in India’s recent history.
After the Babri Masjid was demolished on 6 December 1992, Bombay went up in flames. First came the riots in January ’93 that claimed over 600 lives. Then in March, a series of bomb blasts rocked the city. Over 200 people lost their lives, and property worth crores of rupees was destroyed.
It didn’t take very long for the authorities to expose underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s role in the whole affair. Investigations started almost immediately, and a Special Bench headed by Justice Variava was constituted to expedite the blast hearings. The 7 February charge-sheets against Rai and B.B. Saran accuse both of giving shelter to Dawood’s men after the Dubai-based mafia don’s role in the blasts was exposed.
According to the charge-sheet, Kalpnath Rai provided shelter to five Dawood associates between June and October 1992 at the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) guesthouse in Delhi. He was then the union minister for energy and the rooms were said to have been booked by his secretary in the name of B.N. Rai. This B.N. Rai was registered as the ministry’s ‘official guest’.
The former Minister’s secretary was also charge-sheeted for having booked a suite for the accused in the J.J. Hospital shoot-out case in Bombay at a government guesthouse.
As for B.B. Saran Singh, the BJP MP from Gonda, the charge-sheet stated that Dawood’s associates often sought shelter at his 25 Meena Bagh residence at Delhi.
The patronage Dawood Ibrahim received from, and gave to politicians, has long been talked about. But this was the first time that some politicians were actually being charge-sheeted for it.
Why then, was there this lurking sense of unease about the charge-sheets?
For one, the timing was suspect, as the general elections were around the corner. For another, the Havala charge-sheets seemed to be conveniently aimed at Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s political rivals.
The Rai and Saran charge-sheets were seen as counter- weights to the perception that the Havala charge-sheets were politically motivated.
And lastly, no one has bought Narasimha Rao’s argument that he had nothing to do with the charge-sheets: The Prime Minister heads the personnel ministry which has jurisdiction over the CBI, and to heap coincidences upon coincidences, the CBI director, Vijaya Rama Rao, is known to be close to Narasimha Rao (he meets him every day).
A few years ago, there would have been no ambiguity at all about the CBI's bonafides. A former joint director in the bureau recalls, "There was a time when the CBI was looked upon as the final appeal to fair play. If the police messed up investigations or was seen as being partisan, people believed, rightly too, that the CBI would uncover the truth. A CBI enquiry had the status and reputation of a judicial enquiry." Things have changed a lot since then.
CBI - through the hourglass
The British to Nehru
The CBI was started by the British during World War II as an anti-corruption wing in the war department. It was then called the Special Police Establishment (SPE). After the war ended, the British government realized that there was a continuing need to check corruption in high places. And so in 1946, the SPE was placed under the charge of the home ministry and its brief was enlarged to investigate corruption in all government departments.
The bureau acquired its present form and label through a Government of India resolution in 1963. However, it continues to derive its powers from the 1946 Delhi Special Police Establishment Act.
The bureau’s former additional director, V.R. Lakshminarayana, recalled in an article some time ago: "That was the time a strident Parliament could be silenced by making over the matter to the CBI, so high was its prestige and reputation for impartiality. Interference from the government was unknown. The Sixties and the early Seventies was high noon.” But, he adds, "The eclipse was to follow."
As with a lot of institutions, corruption began with the Emergency. It was during this period that Indira Gandhi started foisting political appointees on the bureau. Since then, says a former Delhi police commissioner, "CBI directors are remembered by the controversies they were involved in."
Earlier, CBI directors reported to the home secretary and prepared a formal report. Just before the Emergency, Indira Gandhi started summoning directors to brief her personally in one-to-one meetings. This short-circuiting of channels has since continued. As the former police commissioner put it, "Indira Gandhi started the practice. Rajiv Gandhi institutionalized it and Narasimha Rao of course, has elevated it into a fine art.”
The Opposition, having been at the wrong end of the stick when the politicization of the CBI and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) began, promised to institute changes. The Janata Party government which came to power in 1977 declared that it would end the partisan role of the CBI and the IB. It formed a committee under the chairmanship of L.P. Singh to find out what had gone wrong and why. And then promptly went ahead and appointed R.D. Singh as head of the CBI for the sole purpose of prosecuting Mrs Gandhi. That boomeranged on the Opposition, Mrs Gandhi came back to power and the promised reforms never took place.
Since then, every government that has come to power has thought it necessary to bring in its own appointee as the bureau's chief. Not only did the appointments become political, granting of extensions to directors became a means of assuring compliance. D. Sen, J.S. Bawa and Mohan Katre are among those mentioned whenever there is talk of integrity falling victim to extensions. The present director himself has received two extensions.
That wasn’t quite the case earlier. When Nehru’s regime was rocked by the Mundra corruption scandal in the 1960s, the CBI was instrumental in bringing Mundra to book. Then in 1971, the opposition clamored for and got a CBI enquiry held against Tulmohan Ram and, despite being a Congress MP, Ram was prosecuted.
Indira Gandhi and the Emergency - When the CBI turned from an Investigative to Intelligence Service
The Problem, however, is popularly perceived to have begun with D. Sen and the Emergency.
Following the Jayprakash movement, Mrs Gandhi was getting paranoid about her government and her usual calm began to desert her. Politically, she attempted to closet herself with those she perceived as loyal to her; and administratively, she attempted to put pliable people in positions of power.
D. Sen was not considered one of them. But then, Sen’s term expired, and Indira Gandhi offered him an extension. That seems to have changed the relationship altogether.
After Emergency was imposed in June 1975, the Prime Minister made it a practice to peruse both CBI and Intelligence Bureau reports. That was the time, in fact, the IB was used for spying on Mrs Gandhi’s domestic opponents and the CBI itself turned from an investigative to an intelligence agency. Midnight knocks, sundry arrests and cases: the bureau came to be embroiled in all of it.
Sen’s role came to light after the Emergency was lifted.
A senior CBI officer, Y. Rajpal, didn’t quite agree with his boss’ style of functioning and kept extensive notes on the CBI's activities during that period. His elaborate testimony as a witness before the Shah Commission led to severe censure of Sen. When Mrs Gandhi came back to power in 1980, Rajpal took premature retirement.
The Janata Regime
Even during the Janata regime, politics didn’t quite abandon the bureau.
The L.P. Singh Committee never amounted to much and when home minister Charan Singh brought in R.D. Singh for the Jeep case against Mrs Gandhi, he didn't really cover himself with glory.
Rajiv Gandhi & the CBI's Single Directive
The real downfall began, however, with Mohan Katre.
He came into the bureau in 1985 and all was quiet on that front till the Bofors scandal broke. Inevitably, a CBI enquiry was asked for and granted, and a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) headed by Shankaranand was set up to probe the issue. Only, the JPC depended almost entirely on Katre’s testimony and Katre had his loyalties clear. In such a situation, if the CBI director barefacedly lied to the JPC, there was little chance of his being discovered. Many believed he did. In fact, one of the most amazing things about the Katre-led Bofors probe was that, while he and his team gallivanted all over the world searching for the kickback recipients, they chose not to raid Win Chadda’s (one of the main accused) house till he had fled the country.
Soon, Katre had made himself indispensable to Rajiv Gandhi. One particularly comic episode that older CBI officers remember is the time when Katre’s term was due to expire on 1 November, 1987. Three days before that, on 29 October, deputy DG, Radhakrishna Nair got a letter from the home ministry appointing him as the new chief. But on 1 November, Katre got a hurried letter extending his term and there the two were: one waving his extension and the other his appointment, not quite sure: what was happening.
Katre went out with the Rajiv Gandhi regime, but the aftertaste remained.
Though Rajendra Sekhar was known as an upright officer, the fact that he was brought in by V.P. Singh to file the spate of charge-sheets in 1990 made people question his credentials. And since then, every CBI director who has ascended the post has been scrutinized for his political leanings. Because by that time politicians of every hue had recognized the kind of opportunities an organization like the CBI had to offer.
Only part of this had to do with the bureau’s recent controversies. The main problem was and remains the fact that, all said and done, the CBI is a government organization.
In 1988, things got worse when a besieged Rajiv Gandhi passed what is called "the single directive".
What it amounted to was that, from then onwards, the CBI would not only have to take the government's permission for filing a charge-sheet against public servants, it would also have to take permission before even registering a case against any government official above the level of joint secretary.
Thus, as things stand today the bureau is hamstrung by the following factors:
It has to take the ministry's permission before filing a case against and before charge-sheeting a public servant.
It has to take a separate consent from the concerned state government if it is investigating public servants and politicians in that state.
It has to take the law ministry's opinion on all matters legal.
Under these circumstances, it takes a man of exceptional courage to head the organization and to challenge the government’s political whims on granting or withholding permission. It takes a man of even greater courage to take on the Prime Minister, leave alone interrogate him, on a case. Few such men are available today.
Successive Governments & the Will to Power
Inevitably, successive governments have not hesitated in using the power that they wield.
It is not as if the CBI is ‘unable to dispense with cases fast. Acting under court supervision, the bureau registered 62 cases in the Uttarakhand agitation and (filed) about two dozen cases of human rights violation against Punjab Police officers in no time. When the Supreme Court asked the director to personally look into the clash between pro- and anti-reservationists at the Allahabad High Court, the investigation was completed in a record seven weeks on the basis of which UP police officials were prosecuted.
But then, these cases did not involve people with influence and had little or no political fallouts. The moment big names come into the picture, the balance tilts altogether.
For instance, as long back as 1991 the CBI took up investigations against Maruti Udyog Ltd’s (MUL) managing director R.C. Bhargava. Complaints had been trickling in against certain people being favored in the granting of orders for Maruti’s production line. MUL was then a government concern and the CBI sought permission from the government to register a case against Bhargava. The inevitable delay happened and, in 1992, Bhargava got an extension. By 1995, when the CBI finally managed to register three cases against him, Bhargava was no longer a public servant.
The Letters of Credit case against the Ambanis is now almost nine years old. The charge-sheet was filed about two months ago, because says the CBI, "We completed the investigations only now”.
But Reliance company sources say it had to do with the fact that Dhirubhai Ambani was seen tilting towards the Opposition in recent times and the charge-sheet was a warning to him. Right or wrong, it worked.
There are instances galore of investigations being stonewalled by the government. It can stonewall an investigation by not giving permission to register a case or to file a charge-sheet. Or, in cases where other countries are involved, it can give permission to travel to only some selected countries.
But equally, in Katre's case the reverse worked: he travelled all around the world while refusing to touch the Delhi lines of enquiry.
Solution by Committee?
Is there, then, no option but to live with a premier investigating agency that can at any time transform itself into an arm-twisting agency?
As the CBI's role comes under scrutiny, solutions are also being offered.
A strong case is now being made out for the CBI director to be chosen by an appointment committee comprising not just the personnel and home departments, but also - leaders of Opposition parties. The bureau could also attain a degree of autonomy if it came under the purview of an independent overseer like a Lok Pal.
The Lok Pal idea is not new. It has been mooted numerous times earlier for similar reasons and shot down for the very same reasons. Few political parties would feel comfortable with being scrutinized by an organization beyond their influence.
In fact, one of the major reasons why CBI director Vijaya Rama Rao is under such close scrutiny is not just the timing and selectivity of the charge-sheets. It is to a large extent because of his perceived closeness to Prime Minister Narasimha Rao.
He enjoys unprecedented access to Race Course Road, while the head of the Intelligence Bureau — supposedly concerned with far weightier issues of national security — still reports to the home secretary.
Matters have not been helped any by the recent revelation that the CBI has closed the Goldstar case in which Narasimha Rao’s son P.V. Prabhakar Rao was implicated. When the scandal broke, it was believed to be the most damaging in Narasimha Rao’s tenure as Prime Minister. The CBI now says that no case exists against Prabhakar Rao and the case has been closed after recommending departmental action against its managing director.
This will inevitably shadow the fact that things have moved more efficiently at the CBI since Vijaya Rama Rao has taken over; or the fact that given the changing nature of white-collar crime, Rama Rao was perceptive enough to start a new economic offences cell in the bureau. But then, in the first two years of his tenure, Katre himself was credited with streamlining the working of the organization and creating special intelligence units in the four regional offices. By the time Katre left, few people remembered that.
The CBI is not a lost organization. Politicians still ask for a CBI enquiry when police investigations turn out to be unsatisfactory (in a recent rather bizarre instance, N.T. Rama Rao’s son Harikrishna alleged that his father had been killed and demanded a CBI enquiry into the matter). But so long as it remains completely under the government’s thumb, questions will continue to be raised about its impartiality.
Investigating Agencies and What they Do
Central Bureau of Investigation
Originally set up to investigate corruption in the war and supply department. Has evolved and grown as a plaything of the government. There are many reasons for this ignominious fall of what could have been the premier investigating agency of the country. It was given teeth in 1963. One of the first cases the newly empowered CBI investigated was the murder of Lala Deendayal Upadhyaya in mysterious circumstances. Of late, the courts have begun referring several cases to the CBI, some of which do not need its investigating expertise. The Mandi Dabwali fire, the anti-reservation violence at the Allahabad High Court, the Bhanwari Devi rape case are some investigations where the CBI's investigative capabilities are not required.
Intelligence Bureau:
Enforcement Directorate:
Income Tax Commissionerate:
The Disgruntled
CBI officers who either left or were taken off sensitive cases
N. K. Singh
K. Madhavan
Amodh Kanth
What's Happening on some Famous CBI Cases?
Bofors Pay-Off Case
Case registered on 22 January 1990, after a year-and-a-half long preliminary enquiry.
Accused include Martin Ardbo, former president of Bofors; Win Chadda; and G.P. Hinduja.
After much delay, letters rogatory sent to Switzerland requesting access to certain documents. CBI says the examining magistrate had cleared their claim in respect of certain appellants who have again filed appeals in the cantonal court.
Status: Still Pending.
HDW Submarine Deal
Airbus A-320 Deal
St Kitts Forgery
Demolition at Ayodhya
1984 Anti-Sikh Riots
Securities Scam
Supriya Murder Case
Shankaranand Case
Controversial Directors
D. Sen:
D. Sen
Was director of the bureau for an incredible six years — 1971 to 1977— thanks to extensions given to him by Mrs Gandhi. Till he got his first extension, Sen was known as an honest, upright officer, averse to political pressure. But, says a former colleague of his, "One couldn’t believe how much he had changed after the extension.” Mrs Gandhi had turned the CBI into a sinister 'Big Brother' organization and Sen presided over it. The Shah Commission that later looked into Emergency excesses severely censured Sen for catapulting so completely to the regime.
R.D. Singh:
J.S. Bawa:
Mohan Katre:
Rajendra Sekhar:
Vijay Karan:
S.K. Datta:
A Policeman for All Seasons
CBI chief Vijaya Rama Rao has a special knack for pleasing his superiors.
Professionally competent; otherwise incorruptible; but a good servant to his masters. That—agree both his friends and enemies — about sums up Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) director K. Vijaya Rama Rao. And but for the last trait, Rao might well have retired as another non-controversial police officer, remembered — if at all — for his hard work and efficiency. Fame would have passed him by.
But the CBI director's old friend and mentor had other plans for him.
It was about this time of the year in 1993 and Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao was under siege. The Babri Masjid had just been demolished and the Prime Minister was being held personally responsible for letting the situation get out of hand. The securities scam had broken and at the height of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe, his son P.V. Prabhakar Rao had been implicated in it — accused of using his father’s name to get loans for Goldstar, a company he had promoted. And in July, Harshad Mehta called his controversial press conference and told a gasping audience that he had paid Rs one crore to the Prime Minister at the latter’s residence.
Narasimha Rao badly needed support.
Having isolated himself from the party, he looked homeward in that undying spirit of regional loyalties. At that time, Vijay Rama Rao was home secretary in Andhra Pradesh. He had been installed there by another Rao friend and the then AP chief minister, Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy, as a pre-retirement gift. Narasimha Rao pulled him out of there, brought him to Delhi and installed him as his personal crisis manager at the head of the CBI.
Apart from the crises that Narasimha Rao was faced with otherwise, he also had specific problems with the CBI.
Much to Rao’s discomfiture, the then CBI director SK Datta was not sitting tight on the Goldstar case.
The Goldstar managing director, Krishna Mohan, had claimed before the JPC that the Rs two-crore that scam-tainted broker Hiten Dalal had given to the firm was actually a ‘personal loan’ and had nothing to do with the company. In April that year, the CBI told the JPC that Krishna Mohan was lying. That the money had actually gone into Goldstar’s account and was subsequently disbursed as payments to various companies.
Various other skeletons began to pour out of the Goldstar cupboard including money raised by the company from Andhra Bank Financial Services Ltd. The bottom-line was that Narasimha Rao’s son P.V. Prabhakar Rao was being suspected of using his connections to gather this money for his company.
So, when Datta was allowed to retire and Rama Rao stepped into his shoes that July, few people were surprised.
Normally, such sensitive appointments are cleared by the Cabinet committee on appointments comprising of the concerned minister, the home minister and the PM. A short list of three people was drawn up for the post. Minister of state for personnel Margaret Alva was apparently pushing for Ramalingam, a Karnataka cadre officer and the then DG of civil defense. But Alva was short-circuited when the final decision was to be made and Rao and Chavan approved Vijaya Rama Rao’s name.
Till 1993, Vijaya Rama Rao had served almost exclusively in his home state and his lack of CBI experience was initially resented by many within the organization. Especially since he came in place of Datta who had spent almost his entire career in the organization — rising through the ranks from a superintendent of police in the bureau to the director's post.
But Rama Rao’s obvious competence soon took care of that.
Even Amod Kanth, the ex-CBI officer now at loggerheads with the bureau, says that whatever else Rama Rao may be accused of, his professional competence cannot be questioned.
Born in Warangal district in 1937, Rao did his schooling in Nellore district. He completed his intermediate and graduated as a history student from the Madras Christian College. For a brief while after that, he taught history at a government college at Karimnagar while appearing for and clearing his public service examination. His police career began in 1959.
In Andhra, Rao is most remembered for the way he handled the Naxalite problem. "Efficient, but a hardliner" is the way he is usually described. That meant that while he was good at containing the situation, he wasn’t too averse to the "encounter" method of handling things. His two very successful postings as SP Nellore and Krishna districts brought him to Hyderabad as DCP (law and order). From there he took over as SP at the CID special branch.
But Rao really rose to fame as DIG (Intelligence) in the state, responsible for handling the Naxalite issue. It was his Intelligence background that was to serve him in good stead all through his career.
In fact, this was a post Rama Rao was repeatedly called back to handle. His first stint was in 1975. After an interlude at the South Central Railway as chief security officer, the Congress government brought him back to the intelligence department in 1981. His work there was rewarded by a promotion and a stint as Hyderabad’s city police commissioner. But yet again, Rama Rao was to be recalled to Intelligence by the newly-elected Telugu Desam chief minister N.T. Rama Rao. Despite his closeness to NTR, Vijaya Rama Rao never really became a pariah to the Congress regime: it was a Congress chief minister who brought him back as home secretary.
Congress and Telugu Desam regimes in AP have traditionally had rival supporting camps in the IPS and IAS cadres. That Vijaya Rama Rao was sought after by both regimes was a tribute to two things: his ability and his apparent pliability.
Rama Rao is married to a former Congress legislator’s sister: that put him close to the Congress camp. He himself had shown a leaning towards N.T. Rama Rao and that put him ‘in’ with the Telugu Desam Party (TDP). In fact, after NTR's death in January this year, Vijaya Rama Rao flew down to Hyderabad to pay his last respects.
Vijay Rama Rao’s friends put the whole thing in a different perspective. If anything, they say, Rama Rao’s fault is his great sense of discipline and his overwhelming desire not to antagonize anyone. While being scrupulously considerate to his juniors and colleagues, he is also unable to go against the wishes of his bosses.
Many officers’ close to the center of power have often been controversial because of confrontations with higher-ups. Rama Rao does not belong to that class. Given an order, he is not the type to violate it.
The only situation in which he could be controversial was when there were conflicting interests and conflicting sets of orders. The Havala case might well classify as one of them.
In short, while Vijaya Rama Rao is known to stand up for his juniors, he is not known to stand up to his seniors.
Soft spoken, polite and nattily dressed, Vijaya Rama Rao is unlikely to be happy with the kind of attention he is now getting. It must come as quite a blow to him that having avoided controversy throughout his career, he must be assailed by it at the very end of his service. But there is a price one has to pay: for everything one does. And for everything one doesn’t do.
Ends
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