Time to strengthen institutions

Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana’s concern for deep public scrutiny of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement Directorate, and the Serious Fraud Investigation Office is laudable. The same, however, cannot be said about his recommendation that an independent umbrella institution be set up to bring the various agencies under one roof.

“This body is required to be created under a statute, clearly defining its powers, functions and jurisdictions. Such a law will also lead to much-needed legislative oversight,” he said. This, he pointed out, will check any authoritarian tendencies.

Before creating a new body, it may be useful to find out what the existing bodies, constituted for the same purpose, have been doing so far. In fact, we have to expand the ambit and include all Constitutional and numerous statutory bodies in it, for they are the institutions that were intended to check authoritarianism in the first place. The judiciary itself is part of such institutions.

The British built the civil service, the police service, a standing army, rudiments of democracy, representative government, the central bank, the Comptroller & Auditor General, a good and inclusive education system, Railways, etc. After Independence, we wisely kept them, though politicians of all parties also undermined them for partisan purposes.

To be sure, despite all their failings, the institutions have not done too badly, especially when we compare the conditions in other democracies, the two of them in our neighborhood, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It will be better to strengthen the existing institutions and make them less amenable to political interference than build new ones.