When Centre interfered in CBI affairs

At the height of the Emergency in 1977, a deputy collector of excise and customs in Kolkata was charged with corruption in a case involving a tobacco company. The joint director in Delhi asked the CBI's general offences wing to register a case. With the order were specific directions that the office and home of the deputy collector be searched, but not the tobacco company. The bribe-taker would be searched, but the bribe-giver would be spared. 

Under the rules, the bribe-giver is spared of search only when he is the complainant. That is, in situations where he had been paying bribes, but has decided to stop paying and make a complaint. In such cases, all relevant data, memorabilia etc would be willingly made available by the complainant. In the instant case the company was not the complainant, yet they were being spared. 

So we decided to do the next best—make a list of documents that we would need from the company, and to ask them for those. There was such a provision under the criminal procedure code. 

The action commenced early morning. Within 15 minutes of the CBI team reaching the tobacco company seeking records, we got calls from Delhi. The first call came from the assistant inspector general, who was my rank but senior to me. The director wanted to know if I was searching the company. I assured him I was not. Within 30 minutes the DIG, my senior by one rank, asked me the same question. Within another few minutes my joint director, my senior by two ranks, called. I held my own and convinced them all that there was no search on the company. 

Then came a call from the director. If it was a production exercise, why did I take a large team and why there are witnesses? I explained to him that the production list was extensive which needed the presence of a large team to study whatever was produced. The witnesses were there to sign the receipts. He heard me patiently, and then explained that the company's owners had one member of the family on the Indian Tobacco Board and that the home minister had advised that their premises should not to be searched, and that it was the deputy collector who had forced them to gratify him. 

If the company sought time to produce the documents, would I grant it, he asked. I said the law required me to give them time if they sought it. Soon the company asked for time, and we granted them 30 days. Let me add, they complied with the timeline. 

I don't remember what happened to the case, but my professional life suffered not one bit. I went on to serve the CBI till 1996. 

In 1977-78, one senior officer in the coal ministry wrangled a camera costing Rs 40,000 for his exclusive use from a public sector company. A probe began but within months the pressure mounted. Then CBI director Ram Deo Singh wanted a finding at once and a closure. We took our time. That infuriated the director. His reprimand and annoyance came thick and fast. We completed the investigation and found the officer guilty. 

In the 1980s, when I was the deputy inspector general of the Special Investigation Cell 1 in Delhi (It was a crack CBI unit which probed cases of national importance), we were investigating a scam in the purchase of pistols from Czechoslovakia. We got a an order from the Delhi High Court, forcing one accused, who was in London, to return and face questioning in custody. I approved his arrest at the airport itself. On the day of his arrival, the SP sent to arrest him informed me that the director (Mohan Khatre, who was one of the best directors the CBI ever had) had called him and told him not to make the arrest. I simply told him to write the director’s instructions on the file and send it to me. I wrote on the file that since the High Court had ordered that he be questioned in custody, any departure would amount to the contempt of court, and marked the file to the director bypassing the joint director and special inspector general. The director called me within minutes, and said he was conveying then home minister Buta Singh’s wishes to the SP. All the same, he said he would tell the minister about the High Court's order, and that I was free to arrest the person on arrival. I went ahead with the arrest. 

This was in the mid-eighties. One morning a newspaper carried a copy of a letter from deputy director Enforcement Kolkata addressed to director Enforcement Bhure Lal, where he reported that his search operation of a business magnate was stopped on orders of the acting director of Enforcement. The search had revealed violations of our strict foreign exchange regulations. This was the same time when V.P. Singh had deserted the Congress and Bhure Lal, then a joint secretary, was in the woods. The young prime minister Rajiv Gandhi saw red. He called for details of the incident. It was soon found that there was another letter from Enforcement Kolkata addressed to Bhure Lal carrying the same number and date as carried by the letter printed in the newspaper. The content mentioned the same search but went on to say that the search revealed nothing criminal. M.G. Khatre, then director CBI was summoned and told to arrest those who had forged the letter and given it to the newspaper. Khatre asked me to carry out the orders of the PM. I took a day to study the case in full. I then told him that neither an arrest nor a search was desirable. I convinced the director. What I told him will never be told. Within one week, I found enough material to convince the PM that the newspaper had exposed a murky act on the part of his government to protect a sitting member of Parliament from his party. Bhure Lal had been the whistle blower.  Arresting both the gentlemen and investigating them would be illegal. Rajiv Gandhi relented. 

This one relates to the infamous 1993 Bombay blasts. A team under me had taken charge of the investigations and trial from Bombay Police. Almost all the accused were Muslims. Sharad Pawar, as then chief minister of Maharastra, ensured that the Government of India sanctioned the prosecution of all accused including Sanjay Dutt on the charge of waging war against the country, purely, for political reasons, I suspected. My team, ably led by Neeraj Kumar, R.N. Kaul, Satish Jha and O.P. Chatwal completed the mammoth task and filed 17 reports before the TADA court piling heaps of material evidence against those already prosecuted by the Bombay Police. We also arrested nine more who had escaped from the police. 

However, all this hard work also made it evident that the charge of waging war was unsustainable. Then senior public prosecutor Natarajan agreed. Without any further ado, I told him to act as his legal dharma directed him. He dropped the waging war charges. The fat was in the fire. I was hauled up before then home secretary Padmanabhaiya. I stood my ground. I also suggested that they get the opinion of the attorney general. I believe this was done and we also got his approval. All the same, for the remaining year till my retirement, no CBI investigation of any importance was assigned to me. I spent my time in the office reading novels and magazines. 

My post-retirement job as a consultant to National Fertilizer Company ( NFL) also was stormy. My findings in the Urea scam pointed to doubtful conduct of then prime minister Narasimha Rao's son Prabhakar Rao, principal secretary A.N. Verma and cabinet secretary Surendra Singh. This was 1996. Immediately, then joint director CBI Gopal Achary wrote to NFL that my consultancy should be set aside on the ground that “CBI had taken up the investigation and a former CBI officer as consultant to NFL in this matter is no longer necessary”. Vijaya Rama Rao was the director CBI. The letter was shown to me by the MD, NFL. I quit. In 1996-97, my appointment as MD (Vigilance) of GIC, a public sector company, was blocked by the chief vigilance commissioner. He wrote on the proposal sent to him: “ I have reservations about Shri S. Sen.” I suspect he wrote this in consultation with Vijaya Rama Rao. 

Shantonu Sen is former joint director, CBI.  As told to Namrata Biji Ahuja