CBI opposes certain provisions of Lokpal; to write to DoPT

New Delhi, Jan 9: CBI will flag its concerns to the government arising due to the jurisdiction of the proposed anti-graft body Lokpal over it.

Official sources said CBI has decided to write to the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) opposing the procedure recommended for registration of regular cases by CBI on the basis of a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) conducted by Lokpal.

They said CBI Director A P Singh had held a series of consultations with his senior colleagues and its law officers recently and was understood to have concluded that the Lokpal guidelines were against Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) followed by the investigating agency and would add to complexity in its working.

The Section mandates that every investigation under shall be completed without unnecessary delay and "as soon as it is completed, the officer in charge of the police station shall forward to a Magistrate empowered to take cognizance of the offence on a police report, a report in the form prescribed by the state government".

"CBI will have to register cases on the basis of PE done by Lokpal. It will be troublesome affairs. We will oppose it and certain other things to the DoPT. A letter in this regard will soon be written to them," a source said.

CBI conducts a PE and then files a case on the basis of its probe.

"It will be difficult for us to register a case on the basis of PE conducted by other agencies," the official said.

CBI had earlier also written to the DoPT saying the proposed move to make preliminary enquiry by Lokpal mandatory before giving cases to CBI will "severely impair" effectiveness of the agency in anti-corruption cases as it would lose the "surprise element" to carry out search operations.

The agency had also cited lack of enthusiasm about the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Lokpal Bill that all complaints of corruption cases which are in the nature other than trap cases shall first be scrutinised by Lokpal by holding a PE.

The sources said the mandatory provision of PE is bound to delay the commencement of investigation process.

PTI