The Hindu : CBI urged to review arrests

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Tuesday, Apr 02, 2002

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National

CBI urged to review arrests

By Our Special Correspondent

Soli Sorabjee

NEW DELHI April 1. The Attorney-General, Soli J. Sorabjee, today suggested that the CBI should periodically review the statistics of all the arrests made by it and ascertain how many of the arrests had turned out to be unnecessary.

Delivering the third D.P. Kohli Memorial Lecture, organised by the CBI here, the Attorney-General said the review would check unnecessary arrests. ``An evaluation should be made of the reasons for unjustified arrests. If it is found that the arrests were mala fide or politically motivated the delinquent officers should be severely punished.''

Advising the lawkeepers to shun premature media publicity, he said that such an exercise could affect a person's business and also cause incalculable and irreparable damage to his reputation. Expressing concern over floundering of cases in courts due to ``shoddy investigation'', he called for fair and scientific methods of investigations to prevent a good case falling to the ground.

``The criminal investigation system needs higher standards of professionalised action and it should be provided adequate logistic and technological support.''

Apart from the proper investigation there should be competent prosecution, he said adding that unless a competent prosecution followed a fair and competent investigation, the exercise in the ultimate analysis, would be futile.

``Investigation and prosecution are interrelated and improvement of investigation without improving the prosecution machinery is of no practical significance,'' he said.

Cautioning against the possibility of being used as an instrument of ``injustice and oppression'', the Attorney-General said that such a situation would not materialise if the CBI functioned fairly and independently. ''Its prime loyalty must be to the law of the land to the discipline of the Constitution and not to the whims and desires of the political masters of the day,'' he told the gathering.

Though he refused to name the cases, Mr. Sorabjee said that he knew of two recent instances when the CBI had firmly resisted executive and political pressure.

The Central Vigilance Commissioner, N. Vittal, presented D.P. Kohli memorial awards to two CBI personnel — constable, Dheer Singh and head constable, Rakesh Kumar — for their investigative skills. The award has been instituted in the memory of D.P.Kohli, the founder-director of the CBI. The CBI Director, P.C. Sharma, Additional Director, Vijay Shankar, former CBI Directors, heads of Central police organisations and a number of CBI officials were present.

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