The CBI has sold its soul, senior advocate KTS Tulsi is reported to have commented on February 10, after the central investigating agency, CBI told the Supreme Court that it acted under the centre’s directive in seeking to bail out Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav in the disproportionate assets case.

The observation about the CBI has not surprised the political leadership in the country. But the Supreme Court admonition of the agency further strengthened the general perception of the common man about the CBI as a willing tool of the establishment. In the last five years, the agency has acquired a dubious distinction, which in popular description has come to be referred to as Congress Bureau of Investigation. This is rather an understatement considering the enthusiasm of the CBI to work as an extended arm of the Congress dirty tricks department.

The apex court was unsparing and candid when it asked the CBI, “So you were acting at the behest of the Law Ministry. You were not acting independently. What you just now said is something unusual.”

Unusual has indeed been the actions of the CBI under the UPA. Like every single independent pillar of democracy, the Congress regime has brick-by-brick demolished the reputation of this once hallowed central investigative agency too.

The latest act has only exposed the agency more glaringly. The CBI pleaded before the apex court on Tuesday (February 10, 2009) that it wanted to withdraw an earlier letter seeking permission for Mulayam Singh’s prosecution as it has been directed by the Law Ministry to do so. This move from the CBI was widely speculated during the last two months as a reward and part of the deal with the Congress by the Samajwadi Party for its support for the Manmohan Singh government during the confidence motion in the Lok Sabha after the Left Front withdrew support.

The CBI’s shocking revelation in the court proved another low in the shameful history of the organisation that has invited sustained criticism for being a puppet of the UPA. The CBI’s role in the Bofors case, Sonia Gandhi’s friend Ottavio Quattrocchi’s escape from India, and the defreezing of his bank account in a London bank, its refusal to challenge the stashing away of the sleaze payoff money, its failure to pursue the much-publicised Taj corridor and disproportionate assets and tax evasion investigation against Mayawati after the BSP leader struck a deal with the Congress soon after her return as UP Chief Minister are too well known and fresh in public memory. Equally scandalous was the manner in which it buried the fodder scam and corruption charges against RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav after his party joined hands with the Congress. Its flip-flop in the matter of Bofors, Mayawati and Lalu has earned it a great deal of notoriety.

In the Mulayam case on October 26, 2007, the CBI had filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking permission to table its investigation reports holding that there was prima facie evidence to prosecute the SP leader, and his entire family in corruption cases. Those days Mulayam Singh was opposed to the Congress and Mayawati was friendly with the Congress. Her cases were being withdrawn. But after the SP came closer to the Congress by voting for the confidence motion the CBI took another about-turn. On December 6, 2008, the agency filed an application to withdraw its earlier request for prosecution of the SP leader. The CBI says it received an application from the SP leader and it consulted the centre and was instructed to withdraw the case. Can there be a more blatant instance of misuse of the CBI for political deal-making? The observation of the highest court was that since the investigation was being carried out after taking its clearance, the agency should have first gone to the court instead of rushing to take a cue from the executive. Undue political interference in the agency, and the willingness of the successive heads of the organisation to kow-tow before the establishment and the UPA’s peculiar tenacity in appointing only such persons to head the institution, have besmirched its reputation in the public eye. Sadly, only the judiciary is now left to repeatedly remind the regime about the limits of its overreach.