Why treat rich & poor differently, court asks CBI

NEW DELHI: A trial court recently slammed the CBI for adopting different approaches while handling rich and poor criminals.

The court elaborated on how the CBI misuses its power of discretion to make arrests and goes easy on “rich, white-collar criminals”. Lambasting the agency, the court cited data to show its discriminatory attitude and questioned the existence of the CBI manual. “Although the CBI has been created by a resolution of the central home ministry...but it is claimed that it is a body created in pursuance to enactment of Special Police Establishment Act, 1946....this court did not give any provision which enables the CBI or any executive body to make any delegated rules or manual,” the court said.

It added that Delhi Police is better than the CBI when it comes to making arrests in cases of cheating, fraud etc. “Whenever such cases are investigated by the local police i.e. Delhi Police, the accused are mostly arrested....But when the matter is investigated by the CBI, such white-collar criminals, committing very serious offences of cheating and embezzlement of crores, enjoy the liberty throughout their lives. Though under the law, all criminals are equal, but this scenario shows different approaches towards rich and poor criminals,” chief metropolitan magistrate Naresh Kumar Laka

The court made the observations while refusing to accept the agency’s chargesheet in a corruption case against seven people who allegedly duped a national bank of Rs 350 lakh. It ordered investigation and sought an explanation from the CBI as to why it had not arrested the accused in the case despite the offences being non-bailable in nature.

The court rejected the CBI’s contention that it generally does not make arrests in such cases because such cases require lengthy investigation and if they make arrests, then the probe has to be completed within 60-90 days after that. “...this court had observed that in many cases, the CBI did not adopt a uniform approach and arrested many persons in similar offences of cheating, fraud and forgery, which can be seen in the court records as well as press releases published on the CBI’s website,” the judge said. He added that he observed this in his 10 years of experience as a judge. Citing court data, he said, “Of 47 cases of cheating, the CBI had arrested the accused only in 11 cases. The percentage of arrest is 23.40%”.

CMM Laka also found no merit in the prosecutor’s contention that the CBI follows its manual and only arrests the accused in cases of “heinous crimes”. “The offence of forgery of a valuable document under section 467 IPC alleged against accused 1-7 in the instant case is punishable with imprisonment for life or upto 10 years...The investigating officer can exercise his discretion for offences punishable upto seven years only and for rest of the cases providing punishment for more than 7 years, arrests needs to be made,” it said.

Forwarding its order to the CBI director, the court has asked for an amendment to the existing clause regarding arrests in the CBI manual and has sought an action taken report in the matter by October 5. “Copy of this order be sent to the Director, CBI to consider, in his wisdom, the issues raised in this order and take appropriate action at the earliest, especially to modify/ammend the crime manual...and remove the clause of ‘heinous crime’, which is vague’, the court said, adding there was no clarity in the manual about what exactly constitutes a “heinous crime”.