CBI’s ex-chief: Bhopal probe ‘not influenced’
Refuting charges that the probe of India’s premier investigating into the Bhopal gas tragedy was “influenced”, former CBI director Joginder Singh on Tuesday said that there was “no pressure” on the agency at all.
Talking to this newspaper, Mr Singh, who headed the agency from July 31, 1996, to June 30, 1997, said, “There was no pressure on the agency at all. The probe into the Bhopal gas tragedy was not influenced. Being the director of the agency, I was closely associated with the probe. It was during my period that the Supreme Court on September 13, 1996, amended the charges to Section 304A, 336, 337 and 338 of the Indian Penal Code. Accordingly, revised charges were framed before the court of the chief judicial magistrate, Bhopal on August 29, 1997.”
The charges pertained to causing death due to negligence and causing grievous hurt or injury by acts endangering personal safety of others.
Mr Singh further said, “When the top court had ordered amendment to the charges, there was not much the agency could do. It does not mean that the agency’s probe was influenced. Same is the case with the extradition of Warren Anderson, former chairman of the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC). I don’t remember that the CBI had got any written instruction from the Union ministry of external affairs asking it “not to pursue the matter”.
Asked about claims of former joint director of the agency and incharge of the probe, B.R. Lall that he was forced by the MEA not to follow Anderson’s extradition, Mr Singh said, “Whatever Mr Lall is saying is irrelevant and is not correct at all. If the MEA has to convey any information to the agency, it will pass it on only to the director and not an officer of a joint director level. I don’t remember that any such direction was conveyed to the CBI director,” Mr Singh said.
However, Mr Lall told this newspaper, “I received a letter from the MEA saying not to pursue the matter of Warren Anderson’s extradition. CBI investigation was influenced and commanded by some officials, as a result of which justice in the Bhopal gas leakage case got delayed and, hence, denied.” There is a need to make the CBI free from government control to ensure transparency and fair probe, he added.
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