SARIM NAVED - B.K. Bansal’s Suicide is Testimony to CBI’s Falling Standards
When B.K. Bansal, the former director general
of corporate affairs, wrote his suicide note, it made the
news and rightly so. In his note, Bansal did
not make any admission of guilt or regret, but blamed the CBI, its
officers and its investigative methods for forcing him and his son to commit
suicide. In the note, he also said that pressure from the CBI team when he was
first arrested had led his wife and daughter to commit suicide.
The note
confirms a long-standing truth about the country’s policing agencies – that
they are often more concerned about humiliating the accused
during interrogations rather than actually conducting an
investigation.
This episode brings to
mind the case of Raj Kumar Khurana, a hotelier from Mumbai who was questioned
during the 1993 blast cases. During his questioning, Khurana was told
about the humiliations that would be inflicted on his wife and children.
Fearing the worst, he killed his family and committed suicide. This episode
finds prominent mention in Hussain Zaidi’s Black Friday and
was also received some attention at the time. The then commissioner of
police is even reported to have said that Khurana must have had a guilty
conscience, which drove him to take his life and that of his family.
The charitable view
here would be that the investigators genuinely believes that a ‘broken’ person
can only tell the truth. The uncharitable view is that abuse and
humiliation is utilised to break a person down so that they become more
amenable to confirming the police’s version of events. Either way, abuse as an
investigative tactic is barbaric and it is no coincidence that the most
developed countries in the world frown on police barbarity. India lags
behind in its understanding of the investigative process and in its tolerance
of practices that brutalise its own police force as much as its victims. What
is new is that the CBI, considered the premier and the most sophisticated
investigative agency in the country, has now been accused of using tactics
that it previously proudly disowned.
I remember being asked
why a CBI why I was with a client, a witness in the Jagan Mohan
Reddy’s disproportionate assets probe, whom I had accompanied to the
CBI camp office in Hyderabad. My reply, in a jocular tone and with a smile, was
so I could ensure that he was not beaten during questioning,
which drew a horrified gasp from the officer. “No, no, CBI does not do
such things”, he assured me. I wonder if he would be as proud of his agency
today.
Unfortunately, there
are many instances in recent times where the CBI has been accused of
inflicting violence during interrogations. Recently, Sanjeev Shukla, an AIIMS
student, was summoned by the CBI on allegations made by an anonymous
complainant that he had cheated on the AIIMS entrance exam since the person
seated next to him at the test centre in Kota had come second while Shukla
had secured the 14th position. It is important to note that in
modern computerised tests, such as the AIIMS entrance test, the
sequence of questions is randomised in different computers, such that what may
have been the first question for Shukla was question 150 for his
neighbour, which makes cheating on the exam difficult, if not impossible.
AIIMS, which received
the anonymous complaint, carried out a cursory inquiry and theorised,
based on the answering pattern by Shukla, that he had copied answers from his
neighbour. The institute then filed a complaint with the CBI, which
included the strange allegation that “The candidate was apparently in the
company of some political leaders prior to the examination”. Shukla, it is
pertinent to note, had worked with the legal team regarding the All India
Pre-Medical Test leak last year, which had prompted the Supreme Court to cancel
the test. While doing so, he had come in contact with some of the Vyapam
whistleblowers as well as opposition politicians. During his questioning, the
CBI repeatedly sought information on the political figures that he had come in
contact with during the campaign. They also asked him which political figures
he had talked to in between the interrogation sessions.
Suffice to say, the
fact that the CBI registered a case against a single student regarding
an allegation of cheating is strange for an organisation that claims to be
overburdened. The CBI usually registers cases only when referred to them by the
appropriate government and also when it relates to larger public interest.
Clearly, the anonymous complaint was forwarded in a hurry to the CBI, which in
a rather rushed manner, registered a case. The only proof they had
against Shukla is that he did not use enough rough paper for calculations.
Shukla was called in for questioning for two days. When it became apparent that
the CBI had nothing to go on, he was beaten by CBI officers inside their office
on the third day. Shukla has filed a complaint on this incident with the
National Human Rights Commission and the Delhi police.
The CBI seems to be
constrained by the unholy nexus of politicisation and unprofessional
excesses. This is nothing new for Indian police agencies and the CBI, after
all, is staffed by members of various Indian police forces. Bansal wrote that a
CBI official boasted about his proximity to BJP chief Amit Shah. The CBI team
investigating Shukla seems to have been more interested in his political
circles than in the content of his answer sheets. The premier investigative
agency is in grave danger of becoming a loyal servant to those in power. The
CBI would go a long way in restoring its credibility if it would register a
preliminary inquiry against its erring officers to ensure that such tragedies
do not happen again.
