However if the court decides to accept the closure report the court should give notice and hear the informant (complainant) and (though this is not yet settled) a representative from the group that persists in saying that there is sufficient evidence on record for a charge sheet to be filed. Where the court ultimately after such hearing accepts the closure report, the persons aggrieved can invoke the “justice provisions” of the Constitution: Article 226 or Article 136.

Though the request for this article was occasioned because of the Tytler drama (and the trauma accompanying it) the more important question is a general one, viz whether it isn’t time that the CBI be made institutionally independent of pressures and pulls from within the government or without. I believe we must have in place an Independent Bureau of Investigation (an IBI). But this can only be by law expressly enacted by Parliament. There are models in the US which are available which could and should be adapted.

In the end it is the personality of the man or woman at the top that counts. If newspaper reports are to be believed (The Indian Express, April 9) the Department of Personnel in charge of the CBI, notwithstanding the dictum in Vineet Narain, inquired why the ministry had not been kept informed of the CBI’s closure report — which is only illustrative of the fact that officials who read the statute just cannot accept that the word “superintendence” cannot mean “control”. But kudos to the present director of the CBI who reportedly informed his controlling ministry that his duty as CBI director was to report his investigation to the court, and not to the government.

... contd.