ED, CBI, I-T action against graft irks Opposition

Since the Modi government has come to power, the number of cases against top politicians is increasing by the day.

NEW DELHI: The recent functioning of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Income Tax (I-T) reveals that the most of the action taken by these agencies in the past five years are unnerving the Opposition leaders.

Despite Opposition backlash, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government has clearly said that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government is committed to ending corruption and the enforcement agencies are tackling corruption according to the law of the land, but the action of the enforcement agencies are not above doubt.

Ever since the Modi government has come to power, the number of cases against top politicians is increasing by the day. The current action against Karnataka Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar and his daughter and former Finance Minister P. Chidambram are just two examples.

Currently, the ED, CBI and I-T together are probing against more than a dozen Opposition leaders. The names facing probe include Congress’ interim president Sonia Gandhi and her son and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi,  Motilal Vora, Oscar Fernandes, Karti Chidambaram along with his jailed father P. Chidambaram, Lalu Yadav, his son Tejaswi Yadav and daughter Misa Bharti, D.K. Shivakumar and his daughter, former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat, former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, TMC leader Sudip Bandyopadhyay, former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, BSP president Mayawati, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, Congress leaders Sachin Pilot, Ashok Gehlot, Ravi Krishna, son of former minister Vayalar Ravi, and Shivraj Patil’s son, Shailesh Patil, besides others.

The ED has also filed cases in which BJP leaders are involved, although in some of these cases, the ED has not made much progress. Such cases include Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, the Reddy brothers of Bellary, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is allegedly a key suspect in the water supply scam, and Mukul Roy, who is facing a probe in the Narada “sting” issue, current Human Resource Development minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ and Narayan Rane. All these leaders are facing charges of alleged corruption.

ED officials say that their action is based on evidence and not on prejudices. On the condition of anonymity, an ED official told The Sunday Guardian: “The Enforcement Directorate acts according to its mandate and the cases that are being probed by the agency will sooner than later reach a conclusion. The ED has certain limitations as it has less manpower than the assigned capacity; also, the slow judicial process is preventing speedy investigation. Despite these problems, the number in conviction report filing in courts has multiplied.”

So far, only in one case, the ED has achieved conviction and most of the cases that the ED has so far investigated are yet to reach any conclusion. The speeding up of prosecutions in Modi 2.0 is, therefore, boosting the morale of honest officers who earlier were the target of their corrupt colleagues.