The Asian Age – Ensure a ‘free’ CBI is not a ‘rogue’: CBI director

Asian Age Correspondent

New Delhi, 16 May 2013. CBI director Ranjit Sinha on Wednesday welcomed the move to ensure the agency’s autonomy, but cautioned this should be coupled with measures to avoid making it a “rogue organisation”. In a democracy, he added, no organisation can be “totally independent”.Indepe

CBI sources said the agency will make a presentation by the end of May before the GoM headed by finance minister P. Chidambaram (charged with drafting a law to make the CBI independent, to be submitted to the Supreme Court on July 10) on ways to ensure its “functional independence”.

The agency is likely to refer to the 1993 Supreme Court Vineet Narain ruling that set guidelines insulating the CBI director’s office.

Mr Sinha told this newspaper: “We all want an independent agency. And we want total independence during investigations.”

He later added: “It will be well if it is accredited to a body overseeing its functioning, but at the same time not interfering in criminal investigations. We can look at organisations in some Western democracies. We can adopt any such model.”

http://www.asianage.com/india/ensure-free-cbi-not-rogue-chief-676

The Tribune – SGPC steps up efforts for early session

Perneet Singh, Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 21. Intensifying efforts to expedite the process for the election of its new office-bearers, the SGPC today shot off a fresh missive to the Union Home Ministry, seeking an appointment with Home Minister P Chidambaram.

Avtar Singh Makkar, SGPC chief, said the annual SGPC budget had to be passed before March 31, which has to be first cleared by the executive. Ridiculing the Sehajdhari Sikh Party’s claim that the SGPC had misinterpreted the Supreme Court orders, he accused the party of deliberately creating confusion over the issue. SGPC’s senior counsel Gurminder Singh said:

“The Supreme Court has clearly said that the board constituted on December 17 will continue to function, which means it can go ahead with the office-bearers’ elections.”

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2012/20120222/punjab.htm#19

The Asian Age – Chidambaram would be in jail had there been Jan Lokpal: Hazare

Maharashtra Ralegan Siddhi

23 September 2011. Amid the fresh controversy in the 2-G spectrum case, anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare on Friday said Home Minister P. Chidambaram would have been behind bars had the Jan Lokpal legislation been in existence.

“Had there been a Jan Lokpal now, Chidambaram would have been in jail,” Hazare, who earlier branded the Union Home Minister as a ‘mischievous person’, said.

Chidambaram would have to ‘go home’ in the 2G scam, Hazare said at his village Ralegan Siddhi in Ahmednagar district.

“Chidambaram is ‘khodsal’ (a Marathi word which means a mischievous or a dishonest person),” the Gandhian had alleged soon after returning to his village this month while giving an account of his arrest and release in Delhi ahead of his fast on Jan Lokpal issue. Chidambaram is facing heat from a united opposition which has pressed for his resignation and a CBI probe over his stand in the controversial 2G spectrum allocation after a Finance Ministry note to the Prime Minister’s office(PMO) was submitted to the Supreme Court by Janata party leader Subramanian Swamy.

The note suggested that the 2G scam could have been averted if the Finance Ministry, then under Chidambaram, had insisted on spectrum allocation through auction.

The Government and Congress have stoutly defended Chidambaram asserting that his integrity is not in doubt and there is no question mark over his conduct. (PTI)

http://www.asianage.com/india/chidambaram-would-be-jail-had-there-been-jan-lokpal-hazare-865