Pitching for the formation of a federal crime agency, the head of a Parliamentary Panel on Law has favoured giving special powers as well as intelligence to a central agency like the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate terror-related cases on its own.
"The main objective of setting up a Federal Crime Agency or reconstituting the CBI as Central Bureau of Intelligence and Investigations is to help prevent terror attacks," Parliamentary Standing Committee for Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice, chairman E M Sudarsana Natchiappan told PTI.
"Giving special powers and full-fledged intelligence system to the CBI will save crucial time lost in transfer of investigation of from state police to Central agencies in terror cases," he said.
At present, the CBI steps in only after state governments transfer investigations of such cases to it.
Natchiappan's comments assume significance in the wake of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent remarks on creation of a federal crime agency to deal with terror attacks.
Four days after the Jaipur serial blasts that killed 65 people, prime minister had said the creation of a federal crime agency was the need of the hour as terrorism and several white-collar crimes had inter-state aspects.
The panel had in its 24th report tabled before the Rajya Sabha proposed reconstituting the CBI and developing it on the lines of the American agency, FBI, which handles all terror-related and nationally important cases.
Natchiappan said the need of the hour was to give special powers, intelligence and proper infrastructure to the CBI to carry out 'hassle-free investigations'.
The panel had earlier suggested that terror-related crimes and human trafficking should be classified as federal crimes and their investigation should go to the CBI directly.
Referring to the Jaipur blasts, the Rajya Sabha lawmaker said no breakthrough has been reported even two weeks after the serial blasts.
"This underlines the need for the creation of a federal agency to look after terror attacks," he said, adding, "If there was a federal agency then it would have taken over the investigations immediately after the incident leading to an early breakthrough."
"If important cases, like the Jaipur blast, are handed over to investigating agencies after a gap of a month or so, there is a possibility of losing crucial evidence," he said.
Natchiappan noted since the state governments consider handing over a case, especially the ones related to terror attacks, to the Central agency as a 'prestige issue', most of the times the investigations into such incidents results in blame game between the central and state government.
"Various intelligence agencies are involved in giving inputs regarding terrorist to state police. Due to the inadvertence of the local police, terrorist attacks, which could have been prevented, are also happening," he said.
"The demarcation of the accountability between the Centre and State is narrowed down in the eyes of the public," he said.
While suggesting reorganisation of the CBI, Natchiappan said, "We recommend the implementation of the constitutional provision for institutionalising and reorganising the CBI as Central Bureau of Intelligence and Investigation and the Constitution already has a provision for it."
But till the time a law is enacted for reconstituting or creating a federal crime agency, there should be a mechanism to hand over investigation of terror attack cases to CBI, in case it is needed, at the earliest.
"The Union Home Secretary and the DGP of the state should sit with the Union Home Secretary and CBI director and decide then and there who will carry out the investigations," the lawmaker said.
