Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi on Tuesday recommended a comprehensive legislation to make the Central Bureau of Investigation functional as an efficient and impartial investigative agency.

Delivering the 18th D.P. Kohli Memorial Lecture, Chief Justice Gogoi listed legal ambiguity, weak human resource, lack of adequate investment, accountability, and political and administrative interference as key concerns.

“The CBI should be given statutory status through legislation equivalent to that provided to the Comptroller & Auditor General. The legal mandate of the CBI must be strengthened by having a comprehensive legislation addressing deficiencies relating to organisational structure, charter of functions, limits of power, superintendence and oversight,” he said.

“Further, to address an increasing incidence of inter-State crimes, an argument could be made for including ‘public order’ in concurrent list, for the limited purposes of investigating such crimes,” he said, advocating administrative and financial autonomy for the CBI.

Political interference

In the context of political and administrative interference, he said that in the Vineet Narain v. Union of India case, the Suprme Court had expressed concern over the state of affairs and laid down explicit guidelines for protecting the integrity of the force.

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