CBI
Part of the Rotten System
When a girl student was raped
and brutally murdered in a private
hostel. The state police had thrown
a youth behind bars accusing hi,
as perpetrator of the heinous
crime. After nine years in the jail,
the High Court had discharged him
of all charges observing that he
was innocent of the crime and was
falsely implicated in the case by the
police. The High court directed the
Central Bureau of Investigation
(CBI) to reinvestigate the case.
The state level police
machinery in the country has lost
credibility as they used to serve the
interests of those in power. Feeling
the need for an impartial enquiry,
the people used to demand an
investigation by CBI. Is CBI worthy
of this peoples assumption of its
impartiality. The answer is a big no.
The Chief Minister of AP,
Mr.Naidu until few days back
flaunted the cases registered
against the opposition party leader
YS Jaganmohan Reddy as a final
proof corruption by Y S Jagan and his late father YS Rajasekar Reddy.
When he came out the NDA
recently he accused the CBI as a
tool in the hands of the central
government and withdrawn the
general consent to CBI to operate
in AP. Such is the double talk our
politician can indulge.
It is an open secret that every
government at the centre
irrespective of the party in power
has used CBI as a toll to harass
and pressurize to fall in line other
political party leaders (of even its
own party) in order to achieve its
own narrow political ends. The
recent incidents in CBI has
reiterated this fact.
The corruption charges on the
director of CBI and counter
charges on its special director
have mired the CBI in an internal
rivalry. Not only that, it had drawn
the Prime Minister’s Office, cabinet
ministers, Central Vigilance Commi-
ssioner, National security Advisor
and many others as those who
influenced and interfered in the affairs of CBI in their favour. It was
clear that CBI is rotten to the core.
The Guwahati High Court ruled
that CBI has no constitutional
sanctity in 2013. Yet no corrective
action was taken by the
government as the CBI came
handy in its current form. It is
functioning under and answerable
to the Ministry of personnel. It was
instituted by an executive order to
investigate corruption charges at
central and state levels. Its track
record in this regard is not bright
to say the least. It is reported that,
in a written reply in the Lok Sabha,
of the 1369 cases under investi-
gation, 175 had been pending for
more than two years, 394 about two
years and 800 for less than ten
years. Its success rate in corruption
case is dismal 3 per cent.
All the high profile accused in
the 2G scam was acquitted. In
Hawala scam which involved
prominent Congress and BJP
leaders, the Supreme Court
contd. on page 19
contd from page 20 The ILFS fiasco is rooted in this
lop sided policy. The creation of
massive infrastructure without any
idea who is going to utilize it
tantamount to, as one economist
observed, providing a big house to
live to a person struggling to fill his
stomach at least once a day.
The government immediate
action to takeover ILFS is only
meant to assure the financial
markets (read foreign investor) that
it will stand behind the company to
prevent complete collapse of ILFS
and to bail out its creditors with
public funds.
Following the takeover of ILFS,
the government went to National
Company Law Tribunal asking for
moratorium on creditors. Several
major infrastructure projects came
to halt throwing thousands of people out of work. The ILFS
episode would affect the middle
classes in coming months. Their
hard earned saving were invested
by LIC, UTI and others in ILFS. The
returns on these savings will take
a big hit. The small business and
industries find it hard to raise even
the working capital from the market.
In the long run, the burden of ILFS
fiasco would be transferred on to
the backs of the people.
The ILFS fiasco may appear as
a sudden unraveling; but it is
boiling under the surface for a long
time. It is part of the ever growing
crisis that is engulfing every sector
of Indian economy all these years.
The crisis is not going to be abated,
but strikes the lives of the people
with ferocity in the coming months.
21
manufacturing sector could not
recover despite the tall claims by
the leaders of government and their
supporters.
The repeated tweaking of the
GDP data cannot hide this fact. The
overall GDP growth rate is around
7 per cent during the last ten years,
while that of manufacturing sector
hovered around 4 per cent and
that of agriculture stayed below 2
per cent. At this, to say
sarcastically, ‘Hindu rate of growth’,
the economy could not provide
employment and generate
demand. Yet the stock markets are
roaring with sensex reaching new
record points. This means that the
big bourgeoisie is making profits at
the expense of small business and
industries.
December - 2018