All India Services Are Concerned

It is this duality that enabled Ms Banerjee to prevent his “surrender” to the CBI. This massive ponzi scheme has defrauded some 17 lakh investors to the tune of `3,500 crores.. But this is far from being the end of the story. If, for instance, state governments begin to doubt the bona fides of the Central government with regard to action against all-India officers, and refuses to cooperate in the implementation of existing service procedures, the consequences can be very serious. In a judicial directive that plays a fine balancing act between the prerogatives of the CBI, the Central investigating agency, and the state government, the SC directed that Mr Kumar could be questioned for his alleged non-cooperation against the guilty in the chit fund scam, but he wooden dowel screws could not be arrested, and that the interrogation would be in a “neutral” place — which was neither Delhi nor Kolkata, but Shillong.

The SC’s directive was hailed as a victory by both the opposing sides — the BJP and Ms Banerjee.But Sardar Patel probably did not visualise what happened recently in Kolkata, where a senior IPS officer was “shielded” by the state government, led by the feisty Mamata Banerjee, from being arrested by a team of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). But if that cooperation ceases, the entire system is likely to be jeopardised.The crux of the matter is not an immediate solution to this incident but the far more serious issue of Centre-state relations where officers of the all-India services are concerned. It was conceived as the executive bedrock, immune to political pressure, continuing in perpetuity, even if political parties, and the governments formed by them, lost or won at the hustings.The Central government also took this matter to the Supreme Court (SC). If the trust deficit becomes too wide, institutions of this nature will fall through the gap.

There is, as envisaged, an overlap with regard to whom he reports in his current avatar, and who is responsible for his overall conduct in terms of his being a member of an all-India service.In the case of Rajeev Kumar, the police officer in the eye of the Kolkata storm, he is, as the police commissioner of Kolkata, answerable to the Chief Minister, but his cadre controlling authority is the central ministry of home affairs. Investigations have to carried out in states, but the designated investigating agency is a central one, the CBI.The fact of the matter is that the “steel frame”, like many other institutions in the federal polity that is our republic, rests on the foundation of trust between the Centre and the states. This could further bolster the claim of ruling parties in the states to resist any “encroachment” of their jurisdiction by the central government. What happens then in crimes that are not restricted only to one state, and have inter-state implications?