S Satyanarayanan
Tribune News ServiceNew Delhi, May 1
With 32 per cent of the overall sanctioned posts in the CBI lying vacant, the premier investigating agency is reeling under severe pressure and is resorting to “ad hoc” management to cope up with a plethora of cases, including high profile cases like Denel Guns scam, Defence Deal cases, Tehelka Expose and Telgi Stamp Paper scam.
There was an acute shortage of Deputy Superintendents of Police (DSPs) and Legal Officers, who were the backbone of the agency for investigation of various cases and its logical conclusion in courts, sources said.
While 105 posts, out of the sanctioned posts of 240, were lying vacant at the DSP level, 76 out of 230 posts of Legal Officers were vacant, sources said.
There was also a wide gap between the sanctioned posts and available manpower in the Inspector and Sub-Inspector grade too. Out of 755 Inspectors’ post (sanctioned), there were only 559 Inspectors functioning at the moment and out of the 367 Inspectors (sanctioned position) 132 posts were lying vacant, sources said.
Despite the fact that most of the vacancies under deputation quota in ranks such as DSP and Inspectors existed due to non-availability of willing officers from Central Police Organisations or State Police Forces.
The problem of the CBI had got further compounded as according to the existing austerity measures of the Government, direct recruitment had been limited to one-third of the direct recruitment vacancies arising in a year subject to a further ceiling that this should not exceed 1 per cent of the total sanctioned strength, resulting in filling up only a fraction of vacancies during a year, sources said.
Meanwhile, taking serious note of this shortage, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice in its Fifth Report had called for immediate action by the government to tide over this situation.
Observing that if this situation was allowed to continue for long, there could be serious repercussions on the functioning of the CBI, it said “the committee is disturbed over the prevailing vacancy position in the CBI and feels that despite repeated recommendations by the committee, adequate steps are not being taken at the Central Government’s level to overcome this persisting problem.”
Keeping in view the deputationist orientation of the organisation, where expertise and experience of the best available talent of the Central Police Officers and State Police Officers were utilised, the committee had recommended that attractive incentives should be given to those joining the CBI from other organisations.
