The staff crunch in India’s premier investigating agency should be filled urgently

The premier investigative agency of our country Central Bureau of Investigation despite fulfilling its outstanding investigation resolving several most complicated high profile cases of the country is usually in controversies and faces the reprimand of the honourable courts.

The CBI had to its credits resloving good number of extremely complex cases despite shortage of field inspectors and DIGs in large number though on the contrary extremely overburdened with cases of different nature nationally.

Just a day or two ago after the release the Talwar couple in the much hyped 9 year old case of late Aarushi n Hemraj, the investigative agency came in for severe criticism by the honourable Allahabad High Court for negligence and mishandling.

Similarly in the matter of the mysterious dissapearence of a student of JNU the honourable high court of Delhi has reprimanded the agency for not doing its work seriously and with due interest to trace Najeeb Jung despite so much of hulla balloo in the media, JNU and the political corridors of the country.

In the past this premier investigative agency have been branded by various political parties as caged parrot of the governments in power while trading charges against each other in and outside parliament. Its former two directors also came in the news several times in cases pertaining to alleged favors to some interested high profile businessmen or corporates and some of the cases are already in the court of law.

One should not forget that every important case of high profile nature or the complex one not within the investigative reach of the state police due to their negligence, complacence and lack of know how if raised in the media goes to CBI from Kashmir to Kanya Kumari as if the agency posseses a magic wand knowing very well that its already running extreme shortage of investigative staff and highly overburdened with small and big cases.

An above all this in each and every case the expectation from them is hundred percent whereas in the police departments of several states the resolution status of the cases is very little to the utter dismay, shock and despair of everybody. If we go into the details of shortage of staff in tbis premier investigative agency one would be surprised to know that shortage of staff in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has led to an increase in the number of pending cases which the agency is investigating. Currently the CBI has a total strength of about 5,870 employees against the allocated capacity of 7,274 officers of lower and higher ranks.

There are close to 800 vacancies in the executive ranks, a shortage of approximately 100 law officers and 90 technical and 90 officers. Subsequently, it has badly affected the performance and investigative acumen of the staff as the cases are piling up incessantly and CBI becoming overburdened.

The agency is on an average receiving around 255 cases every year which requires indepth meticulous investigation to nail the actual culprits and expose the deep rooted conspiracies behind these well planned cases
As per government data in 2016, 791 cases were recommended to the CBI between June 2014 and June 2017, which approximately leads one to believe that, the CBI was allocated 260 new cases every year of which , 207 were handed over to the investigative agency in 2014, 326 in 2015, 151 in 2016 and 107 between January and June this year.

In order to fast track the investigation with credible investigation reports thus expeditiously nailing the culprits, the government should fill up all the pending vancies accord special incentives to the agency staff.

SUNIL NEGI