West Bengal has been plunged into an unprecedented crisis. A State government has attempted to stall a Central investing agency from discharging its duties. The State’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has sat on dharna and she was briefly joined by the Kolkata Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar because the Central Bureau of Investigation had come to interrogate him in connection with chit fund scams. The CBI team was driven away, after which the Commissioner went to the dharna site. In the past, there have been State’s unhappy with CBI investigations, but the situation in West Bengal is unparalleled. The storm continues and has reached the court.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s statement in the Lok Sabha that the Kolkata Police move to stop the CBI from performing its duties is a threat to the federal political system of the country is valid. This standoff is not merely unlawful, but sets an unhealthy precedent of politicians and government officials sitting together in protest. It almost confirms the allegations of suspicions of a political connection in the case. The scam in the past has seen a number of influential persons arrested. We don’t know of Kumar’s involvement, but no person is above the law, and there should be no hurdles placed in the path of the CBI investigating the case. Let the bureau probe anybody suspected in the case and let the justice system clear them.
That said, the CBI is not probing a new case. The Saradha chit fund scam is over a decade old. Kumar had headed the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Saradha and Rose Valley chit fund scams in which thousands of small investors had been cheated of their money. The West Bengal government had even repaid the small investors, making good their losses. CBI acted in this case only after the Supreme Court ordered an investigation into it as several files have allegedly gone missing. The Bureau team was forced to go to Kolkata on Sunday as the officer was not cooperating and had failed to reply to repeated summons.
There is a separation of the political body and the bureaucracy and government service rules do not allow government officers to get involved in politics or to participate in demonstrations with politicians. There are certain boundaries that are not expected to be crossed. This is important to keep the administration from being coloured by political ideologies. Theoretically this is possible, but practically those rules have been breached at various times, especially when the staff recruited are close to a political party or politician. In this case the breach is much wider and could give rise to more such intrusions by bureaucracy into the political system.
What is occurring in Kolkata is also an indication of political control over the bureaucracy that has seeped in quite long ago, but is manifesting now. There is a bias creeping into the neutrality with which the bureaucracy is expected to work, leading to the politicisation of the bureaucracy. We are increasingly seeing the political masters influencing bureaucracy and bureaucratic decision making, especially in appointments, transfers and promotions. The transfer of a bureaucrat that is close to a politician is often overlooked, but this is the first step towards the politicisation of the civil services, where loyalty to a political master is rewarded.
Politicians and bureaucrats are expected to work together for the State, but still have to keep a distance, which leads to the question: Should the Kolkata Police Commissioner have joined the West Bengal Chief Minister at the protest site? The answer is obviously no, but what it tells us is that while theoretically the separation of the politicians and the bureaucrats has to be maintained, practically it would be much more difficult.
