BARELY a fortnight in the hot seat, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director Joginder Singh is already beginning to feel the heat. Just when he was trying to dispel the impression that his new transfer policy for CBI officers was aimed at protecting political heavyweights who could protect the United Front Government, the Supreme Court's sharp criticism of Singh's meeting with former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao soon after taking charge has raised the pitch to 'high'.
The Supreme Court's criticism of Singh's conduct competed with Singh's own August 16 announcement of the seizure of Rs 3 crore in cash from the residences of Sukh Ram, communications minister under Rao. But only just. His unconditional apology before the apex court for "hobnobbing" with politicians under CBI scrutiny said it all: "Your lordships, I assure you that from this very moment, I'll become a total recluse." For someone who only the other day was bragging about his meetings with Rao and others of his ilk, this was quite a comedown.
The object of the apex court's ire was Singh's meeting with Narasimha Rao on only his third day in office (see box) . That his hush-hush meeting came almost in tandem with the United Front Government's decision to bestow Cabinet rank on all former prime ministers did not go unnoticed. The decision, made by Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, was obviously viewed with suspicion since a cabinet status bestows immunity to an accused. In such cases, the President's permission becomes necessary for prosecution, although some legal eagles still consider it a grey area. It did not take long to figure out what such an order meant, and for whom it was meant.
But the Supreme Court's opinion of Singh's style of functioning—aired during a hearing in the multi-crore hawala scam—has set alarm bells ringing. More so in the face of political criticism of judicial activism. What the apex court's move will do immediately is to make the going tough for the Deve Gowda appointee. The appointment of a low-profile officer to a high-profile post had come in for fire from critics who felt he would be obliged to do his master's bidding. The court's reminder of his Lakshmanrekha will only rub it in, especially considering the fact that Singh enjoys little support among most constituents of the 13-party United Front.
Observers say it may also affect Singh's capabilities as captain of the nation's premier investigating agency. In a bid to cut his recalcitrant subordinates to size, Singh had fired his first salvo in the shape of his transfer policy immediately after his controversial meeting with Rao early this month.
Like much else associated with him, it sparked off yet another controversy. It was primarily seen by many of his colleagues as a means to marginalise those dealing with politically-sensitive cases such as the Rs 133-crore urea scam, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha bribery case, the Lakhubhai Pathak cheating case and the St Kitts forgery case. While Rao's name figures as an accused directly in two of the cases, in the other two, the Congress president's role was 'limited' to the extent that some of his relatives are alleged to be involved.
Ostensibly, Singh mooted the transfer policy to weed out "vested interests" that he feels develop if officials spend too much time on one posting. To prevent this, he stipulated that the deputation of any officer from the Indian Police Service (IPS) to the CBI would not exceed seven years. If the officer was not willing to be transferred, he would be repatriated to his parent cadre. At the junior level, the deputation would not extend 10 years.
The shunting orders understandably caused much heartburn in the organisation. Some of the worst-hit officials—many of whom have been in the capital for more than a decade—found Singh's decision absurd. Among the most prominent victims were R.M. Singh, B.S. Sheshadri and A.K. Suri (all deputy inspectors-general). R.M. Singh, who had been handling the urea scam, was transferred to Madras. But the official whose marginalisation brought the quixotic nature of Singh's decision-making into sharp focus was Special Director R.C. Sharma.
The senior most officer in the CBI after the director himself, Sharma was divested of all major responsibilities overnight. Singh even issued express instructions that no files be sent to Sharma because he had been "given a special task": that of supervising the investigation of the alleged tapping of telephones of Narasimha Rao and other top Congress leaders.
An officer of the 1963 batch, Sharma is known as a Rao protege. Insiders say that by assigning an insignificant case like telephone tapping to him, the new CBI chief killed two birds with one stone. But Sharma is reportedly upset with Singh's decision. He is said to have told one of his confidants: "I can handle 20 such assignments in a day."
Sharma had also been the frontrunner to the post of the new director before Singh's name sprung up. Insiders say he had met Home Secretary K. Padmanabhaiah, then Cabinet Secretary Surendra Singh, even Prime Minister Deve Gowda, in the run up to the appointment. And Padmanabhaiah had reportedly assured him that his appointment was a fait accompli. In the end, it was the Prime Minister's wish that Singh, a Karnataka cadre officer, get the nod.
That Sharma was bypassed by a man who upstaged him surprises few. Fewer still who are familiar with Singh's style of functioning. Sources in the CBI say en masse transfers is one of the methods employed by Singh to make his presence felt in job after job. One of the first decisions he made after taking over the Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP) force last year was to give marching orders to more than 1,000 personnel at one go. "For the first time in the history of the ITBP, entire battalions were moved," says a senior official.
Another method that the director resorts to, says a senior CBI official, is name-dropping. Kannada-speaking Singh makes no secret of his love for his mentor's name. And makes even less effort to hide it. His CBI colleagues were aghast to see Singh rush forward to meet the Prime Minister as he (Deve Gowda) walked down after delivering his Independence Day address from the ramparts of the Red Fort.
Although the transfer policy is not new—Mohan Katre had given it a go in 1987—Singh was dissuaded by some officials at the joint director-level since they thought it would hamper the progress of ongoing investigations. But Singh refused to pay heed. "He has got little patience. He cannot concentrate on one topic for more than two minutes," says an official. Superintendents of police were recently instructed to give half-page briefs of cases since the director did not have time to go through the details of all the cases.
But undeterred by the criticism, Singh carries on. His confidants aver that much of the fuss surrounding him stems from his proximity to Prime Minister Deve Gowda. What were these critics doing, they ask, when Singh's predecessor, K. Vijaya Rama Rao, was also tinkering with the setup? Vijaya Rama Rao, a Narasimha Rao appointee, repatriated Amod Kanth, a DIG supervising the hawala probe. But Singh's critics—and there are many—say two wrongs do not a right make: "For five years, the CBI paid a price for being the ruling dispensation's lapdog. It cannot do so again."
Tags