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A Parliamentary Committee has expressed serious concern over 855 vacant posts in the country's premier investigation agency Central Bureau of Investigation 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 state 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 the administration of the CBI, as many as 855 posts were lying vacant in the investigating agency.
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,
The CBI can ill afford to have such a 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 the 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 the 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 the 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.