The CBI story

THE Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has its genesis in British India when, during the Second World War, the Special Police Establishment (SPE) was set up under the War Department to probe cases of bribery and corruption.

The SPE came into existence in 1941. In 1946, its mandate was expanded under the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, to investigate corruption in Central and State governments, as it was brought under the purview of the Home Department.

In 1963, the Home Ministry renamed the Special Police Force the Central Bureau of Investigation, vesting in it the power to probe irregularities in all public sector bodies and also inquire into cases of terrorism, murder, and so on.

The CBI is not a statutory body. It continues to derive its power from the DSPE Act and functions as an attached office of the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.

The agency has a Director, who must be a member of the Indian Police Service, as its head. He is assisted by a Special Director or an Additional Director besides a team of Joint Directors, Deputy Inspectors General, and Superintendents of Police. In the light of the recommendations of the Supreme Court in 2003, the 1946 Act was revised to make the process of appointing the Director of the CBI more transparent. The CBI Director is now appointed from a panel of candidates on the basis of the recommendations of a committee headed by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).

According to a statement issued to the Lok Sabha in July 2018 by Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, the agency registered 314 corruption cases in the first six months of 2018. It registered 632, 673 and 617 cases in 2017, 2016 and 2015 respectively.

Although the overall conviction rate in cases registered by the CBI was 69.02, 65.1 and 66.8 per cent in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively, studies have pointed out that the success ratio in corruption cases stands around a dismal 3 per cent. In a written reply to the Lok Sabha in December 2017, Jitendra Singh admitted that in the past four years 3,260 people booked by the CBI in various corruption cases had been acquitted. Of these, 944 people were acquitted in 2016, 821 in 2015 and 748 in 2014.

The CBI has often been criticised for its tardy investigation. Government data confirm the accusation. In a written reply in the Lok Sabha in August 2017, Jitendra Singh revealed that of the 1,369 cases under investigation (at the time), 175 had been pending for more than two years, 394 for about two years and 800 for less than a year.