Top serving and retired bureaucrats reacted to the the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filling charge sheet against former bureaucrats, saying it would lower the morale of the bureaucracy and severely affect decision making process in the country.
The CBI has named 18 accused in the Aircel-Maxis case that includes former Finance
Minister P Chidambaram, his son Karti, former economic affairs secretary Ashok Kumar Jha, Ashok Chawla, then Additional Secretary of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) and now chairman of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and two serving officers from Indian Administrative Service (IAS) cadre.
Serving and retired bureaucrats are of the view that often officers are framed in such conspiracies and made guinea pigs in the political fights. They say, all files go through them and in defence of what they write that favours a particular case, they become a part of the case whether guilty or not. However, the IAS association prefers to remain quiet on the latest CBI charge-sheet. A senior bureaucrat opined that the amendments to the Prevention of Corruption Act were pending in Parliament for six years now, which provide the much-needed protection to a retired government servant that would offer a layer of protection in case of bonafide policy decisions being treated as criminality by agencies.
CBI, in its chargesheet, alleged that then finance minister P Chidambaram had power to approve foreign investments only up to Rs 600 crore but he cleared Rs 3200-crore investment without referring the matter to Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).
