बेबाक · Editorial
From the Supreme Court to a PSC exam case, accountability needs investigations that finish
An FIR kept alive while its investigation is stalled protects neither the accused nor the public. Accountability in India needs a clock, not only a case.
A week of probes
Several recent reports describe Indian institutions starting, pausing and widening investigations into the use of public office. In the CMRL-Exalogic payoff case, the Supreme Court has stayed the probe on a corruption FIR against a former Chief Minister. The Court said: 'We will not disturb the FIR, but we will stall the investigation.' It has sent the matter back to the High Court for adjudication. Separately, the Crime Branch has arrested R. Hari, an additional secretary of the Public Service Commission (PSC), in an examination irregularities case. He had been absconding. Orders have also been issued for a Vigilance probe, approved by the Cabinet on the basis of a panel report, into KIIFB-financed land acquisition in Kannur. Each case is different. Together they raise one question: how long does it take to reach an answer?
The core tension
The Supreme Court's formula captures the problem. The FIR survives, so the allegation stays on record. The investigation stalls, so no one establishes whether the allegation is true. That middle ground can be justified for a time. Left open without a deadline, it harms everyone. A person accused in a corruption case lives under suspicion with no way to clear their name. The public sees a case against a powerful figure that neither moves forward nor ends. Investigators lose fresh evidence and witnesses' memories fade. Sending the matter to the High Court for adjudication is sound procedure. Its value depends on whether the High Court decides quickly, or whether the remand becomes one more step in a long delay.
Both sides, fairly
The strongest case for restraint is serious. Investigative agencies in India have been accused, by many quarters and over many years, of acting selectively against people in public life. When a court pauses a probe while the legal questions around an FIR are examined, it can protect citizens from being harassed through investigation. The strongest case against delay is just as serious. A stay granted to a former head of government is a remedy most citizens never get, and every month of pause makes equal treatment harder to see. Both concerns are legitimate. Neither justifies a stay with no end date. The answer is to resolve the question quickly, not to pick one concern over the other.
What the record shows
The other cases show why finishing matters. In the PSC case, R. Hari and a former deputy secretary of the PSC, P. Satheesh, were allegedly in charge of the evaluation process of a controversial examination to the State Planning Board. Satheesh was arrested recently; Hari had been absconding until his arrest. For the candidates who sat that exam, a recruitment body under suspicion is a direct injury. In Kannur, reports say 4,896 acres were bought for ₹12,240 crore, with procedural lapses alleged and questions raised about due diligence and compliance with the LARR law. These are allegations for the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) to test, not conclusions. In Delhi, a former bureaucrat has filed a PIL asking the High Court to direct the authorities to disclose the Delhi Police's requisitions and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs' sanction and extension orders for what the petition calls 'large-scale' deployment of central armed police forces (CAPF) during protests. The authorities will have their own account of why such deployments were needed; the petition seeks the records that would let the public judge.
The verdict
These cases do not show that Indian institutions are failing. They show institutions doing what they are meant to do: courts reviewing FIRs, police making arrests, a Cabinet authorising a Vigilance probe, a citizen asking a court for records. They also show a gap. The country is good at opening proceedings and poor at closing them. The Supreme Court's separate request to the Centre to take measures against online misuse of court feeds makes a related point. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Court that suggestions from various High Courts and other stakeholders have been received and forwarded to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Open courts are a public good, and so is a public that can follow how a case ends. Rule of law is not proved by the filing of a case. It is proved by the finishing of one, on a timetable the citizen can see.
A way forward
Three practical steps would help. First, when a constitutional court stays an investigation but keeps the FIR alive, it should set a date for the next hearing and a target for disposal. That protects the accused from open-ended suspicion and the public from open-ended delay. Second, the VACB probe into the KIIFB-financed acquisitions and the Crime Branch's PSC case should report their progress publicly, every quarter, through the departments that oversee them. Recruitment exams and public land deals are too important to be investigated in silence. Third, government orders that requisition or extend central forces for policing civilian protests should be disclosed as a matter of routine, except where security genuinely requires secrecy. Citizens should not need to petition a court to obtain them.
Rule of law is not proved by the filing of a case; it is proved by the finishing of one, on a timetable the citizen can see.
What this editorial rests on
Drawn from our live multi-newsroom feed — read the reporting at source.
An editorial is the considered opinion of the Aad Tak desk, argued from the sourced reporting above and written under our published persona, बेबाक. We name institutions, not parties. If we are wrong, we will say so. How we work →