New Delhi, May 28, 2012: A Parliamentary Committee has
expressed serious concern over 855 vacant posts in the
country's premier investigation agency CBI and recommended
strategic steps on a war-footing to fill them.
It rejected the argument put forth by the Ministry of
Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions for maintaining the
'deputationist character' of CBI by taking officials from
states police and central police forces on deputation and
insisted on in-house grooming of the agency's officials.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee "would like to place
on record its deep anguish over the vacancies existing in CBI
at various levels...
"The Committee fails to understand how, the country's
premier investigating agency, whose mandate has witnessed an
unprecedented increase in the recent years, can be expected to
function efficiently and keep up with the high expectations
placed on it by the public, judiciary and legislature, with
such a large shortfall of manpower on several important
posts," a report of the panel said.
According to the Ministry of Personnel, which acts as
a nodal agency for administration of CBI, as many as 855
posts were lying vacant in the investigating agency. Of the
total vacancies, a highest of 626 were at executive level, 61
of law officers and 40 of technical officers.
The Ministry has cited higher pay scales, non-
finalisation of recruitment rules and non-availability of
suitable officials as some of the reasons behind the
vacancies.
"The situation is beyond justification because in the
proposed Lokpal regime, the role of CBI in investigating
corruption cases is bound to expand tremendously. Therefore,
CBI can ill afford to have such large number of vacancies,"
the panel said.
"The Committee strongly feels it to be a matter of
serious concern that the officers and staff of CBI, who are
already under immense stress and strain, will surely not be
able to keep pace with the workload, if the vacancies continue
to exist," said the report tabled in Parliament.
The panel recommended "strategic steps" on a war footing,
with strict deadlines fixed the tackle the vacancy issue and
said, "The Ministry, in co-ordination with CBI, should devise
measures to fill up these vacancies".
The Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances,
Law and Justice rejected the suggestion by the Ministry for
taking officers from state police forces on deputation to
ensure that CBI is "not branded" as a central agency.
"It is of the considered view that investigation skills
that are expected from an officer of CBI are inherently
different from those expected from police officer posted in
the states.
"The very fact that when the state police fails to solve
a case, it is referred to CBI, suggests that the skills
expected of a CBI officer are different and specialised.
"Therefore, the Committee strongly recommends that the
departmental officers in CBI should form and continue to
form the backbone of the organisation and that any attempt to
dilute their strength should be strongly discouraged and
resisted," the report said.
It said that the panel was of the view that by giving
sufficient training and exposure to the departmental officers
in various fields, they will, over a period of time, evolve
into experts in such fields.
"So, greater emphasis should be given to steps such as
skill enhancement of CBI departmental personnel, rather
than encouraging deputation...
"The Committee would also like to emphasise the dire need
of protecting the promotional interests of the departmental
officers in CBI and recommends that steps should be taken to
avoid stagnation at various levels where posts are manned by
departmental officers," it said.
The panel expressed reservation over engaging persons on
contract or temporary basis in the investigating agency as the
accountability of persons appointed on ad-hoc basis will be
lesser than the regular employees and more so, in an agency
such as CBI, where confidentiality is a major factor.
"The fact that eligible officers are not available in
the organisation is indicative of the fact that the cadre
management in CBI, had, at stages, suffered mismanagement.
This needs to be paid adequate attention to so that such
situations do not happen again," it said.
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