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New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has its credibility at stake this time round with the nation transfixed by the double murders in Noida of teenager Aarushi Talwar and her family servant Hemraj.
Though not alien to controversy, the country's premier investigating agency has not been under such intense public scrutiny in a long time.
The release of the girl's father Dr Rajesh Talwar from custody and the CBI's contention that there is no evidence linking him to the murders has evoked mixed reactions.
The CBI says Talwar's medical assistant and two domestic helps from the neighbourhood, Rajkumar and Vijay Mandal, are behind the murders.
Aarushi, 14, was found dead on May 16 in her Jal Vayu Vihar home in Noida.
The Noida Police initially pointed the finger of suspicion on the family's domestic help Hemraj but found themselves red-faced after his body was found on the terrace of the building a day later.
With the police facing the heat for their shoddy investigation, the case was handed over to the CBI.
Talwar was arrested on May 23 and the CBI exonerated him on July 11. Even though he has since got bail, several questions remain unanswered in the case.
Till now the CBI has not found any evidence either against Talwar or the servants.
It is against this background that Gulf News spoke to former CBI director, Joginder Singh.
GULF NEWS: Why is it that every other case these days is referred to the CBI?
JOGINDER SINGH: This shows that people have faith in the organisation. Its success rate has been 70 per cent and no case remains pending with the CBI for more than 2 years.
But it no longer evokes the respect it once evoked and is quite run-down. The tragedy is that the CBI's hands and feet are tied but people still expect it to run the race and win a medal.
Imagine the plight of the agency which cannot even recruit its own staff and must approach the Home Ministry. It cannot hire a good lawyer and must turn to the Law Ministry, which has its own panel, and we all know how these panels operate. They are ruled by the party in power.
In legal parlance, there is no such thing as CBI as the draft regarding the CBI Act sent to the government has been gathering dust in its offices for the last two decades.
The CBI has been created by an executive order of the central government and in truth it is nothing but the Special Police Establishment.
What are the logistics involved?
The CBI normally confines its anti-corruption activities to offences committed by central government employees. It takes up investigation of crimes like murder, kidnapping and rape on reference from the state governments or when directed by the Supreme Court or the High Courts.
Why has the CBI not been able to crack some cases of late?
The CBI is the stock whipping boy. If the trial takes 20 years or the witnesses turn hostile, the CBI is blamed. It is just one wing of the criminal justice system, the others being the prosecution and the judiciary.
There are several bottlenecks and obstructions in cases that come up for investigation. For instance, it is a legal requirement to obtain the sanction of the government for prosecuting a public servant.
Sometimes it can take years to get that sanction. Next, permission is needed to register a case. And again, permission is required for the charge sheet. There are hindrances at every step.
Could you cite instances where the government has tried to scuttle investigations?
Take for instance, the Taj investigation of 2003 that led the Supreme Court to order the registration of cases against Mayawati.
The state governor refused to accord sanction for her prosecution since she had become chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2007.
In yet another case, the CBI had registered 15 cases against the then Petroleum Minister Satish Sharma between 1993 and 1996.
These related to the allotment of petrol pumps and cooking gas distribution agencies from the minister's discretionary quota. The Supreme Court ordered a CBI probe after finding Sharma's conduct "unjustified" in a 1996 judgement.
However, the CBI received a letter from the Home ministry in 2006 stating that the matter had been considered carefully and a decision taken against granting sanction for Sharma's prosecution.
In this case, the Supreme Court had directed Sharma to pay Rs50 lakh (Dh428,418) as exemplary damages in lieu of irregularities in the allotments.
But three years later, the apex court accepted a review petition from Sharma to waive off the penalty imposed upon him. There are several other cases. But despite the fact that the CBI does not have an independent status under the constitution, it has done a commendable job.
In the Aarushi murder case, the CBI has gone for narco-analyses on the accused. How successful are these?
One should understand that this is a blind case. Narco-analysis tests are only indicators, not a source of evidence. To top it all, a country of India's size has just one narco-analysis centre.
Looking at the scenario until now, do you think the case will be solved?
What the Noida Police has done tempts one to write a book titled How to spike a murder. They neither collected any documentary evidence nor any forensic proof. This kind of a case depends upon circumstantial evidence, which if ruined in the first 15 days, the going is tough.
The CBI does not function like the local police. I have the advantage of knowing the thinking and how the officials would be proceeding and investigating the case.
The biggest problem in this type of a case is that even to disprove what the Noida Police said, the CBI has to get the evidence. It will find the truth, but getting the evidence is difficult.
Public opinion says the case could remain unsolved just as several others in the past.
People confuse the probe with the trial. The job of the CBI is to solve the case. But conviction is not in its hands. We have only 12,000 judges whereas, to dispose the pending cases, the requirement is for 44,000. But the government thinks it will be wasting the money by having more judges.
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