Hyderabad: The proverb that the insider thief cannot be caught even by God was not born by itself. Police investigations have revealed that no matter how much skilled one may be in the art of stealing, an outsider would leave some evidence or other at the crime scene to prove his crime. If the same theft happens inside, the department will hush it up either for the fear of ignominy or out of departmental affinity!
The police force which has the mandate of catching the thieves is itself turning a haven for those within the department who are stealing the stolen property and are growing like a pest by the day. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which claims to be unmatched in national criminal investigations, has also been hit by a similar scam involving 103 kg of gold. When the Madras High Court ordered the state CID police for an enquiry, the CBI made a hue and cry that its reputation is at stake.
More about this farce:
The CBI seized a total of 400.47 kg of gold and jewellery in a ride on Surana Corporation eight years ago. The ride was carried out in a case against officials of the Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation for abuse of power to afford an undue advantage to Surana Corporation, an importer of gold, for undue gain. While maintaining that there is no need of the seized gold in order to prosecute the MMTC authorities in the corruption charges, the CBI filed a case in 2013 against Surana Corporation for allegedly violating the Foreign Trade Policy.
Subsequently, the CBI asked the special court to transfer the gold to the Director-General of Foreign Trade, saying that the case was closed as there was no crime involved and that the owner of the gold would be known in the enquiry into the corruption case. The real loophole came to light when the Surana Corporation appealed to hand over the gold to them as it had taken no loans from banks, including SBI, and when the special court ordered the transfer of gold to the banks when they started bankruptcy proceedings against the company.
The cock and bull story
The CBI maintained that the total amount of gold was weighed in the presence of independent witnesses and was decided as 400.47 kgs. It was safely kept in the Surana Corporation's treasury and secured with a total of 72 locks and the keys were submitted to the CBI special court. At the time of handing over the gold to SBI, literally 103 kg of gold was less and found missing. Even the expert accountants will be shocked at the story rendered by the CBI without any hesitation! It maintained that when the gold was deposited it was weighed as a whole lot and at the time of handing it over to the SBI the gold bars were individually weighed...so the deficit. All fiction will fade away before the stories of the CBI!
Also read: Court order TN police to trace 'missing' 103 kg gold in CBI case
The reality test
The department had funny arguments to put forth during the hearing of the suit filed in the Madras High Court seeking an order to instruct the CBI to hand over the deficit gold. It said that the probe should not be carried out by the local police but either by the neighbouring state police or CBI or the National Investigation Agency (NIA). It averred that its prestige will be at stake if the local police conducted the enquiry. The comments made by the court while squashing down the argument of the CBI that the CBI has no special privileges and that the entire police should be trusted, are most crucial to note. It ruled that the police investigation should be completed within six months and that if the CBI emerges clean its prestige will be doubled; otherwise, it should be prepared for the punishment.
CBI seems to have forgotten that it has abandoned its responsibilities of maintaining its dignity, reputation and image in the society. Why doesn't the CBI realize that its reputation has been tarnished when it lost Rs 43 crore worth of gold under its control? It is a question that haunts the average citizen as to what ultimately happens to the things like gold, narcotics, etc., confiscated by the surveillance agencies during illegal transactions, smuggling and their raids.
According to government sources, 60 lakh kg of narcotics were seized and 16 lakh kg were destroyed across the country between 2005 and15. As disclosed by records, the government sources told the apex court that no information is available what happened to the rest of the material. A special court has ordered stern action against those responsible for the disappearance of 144 kg of narcotics stored at the Flower Bazaar police station in Chennai eight years ago. In 2015, hundreds of kilos of goods were lost from the offices of the Bureau of Narcotics Control. What more proof is required to show the skill of insiders in the departments in the art of disappearance?
The Customs Department has a safe deposit chest at the Delhi International Airport to seize and store gold smuggled in by travellers from abroad. The CBI is investigating the theft of hundreds of kilos of gold from that! The Customs Department responded strangely when asked under the Right to Information Act for details. It said that if it disclosed how much gold is stored in the chest, the storage gold also will be insecure! If the precedent of the crime is mentioned, its investigation will be in jeopardy!
Gujarat's Jamnagar customs department has recently lost gold worth Rs 10 lakh crore from its control. The management of the intelligence agencies is so corrupt and their attitude so callous that no one knows to whose possession the confiscated material is going! The Centre has told Parliament that corruption cases have been registered against 36 CBI officials over a period of three years. The good performance of the CBI in cases that do not have political angles also appears to be untenable looking at the deplorable and shameful performance of the CBI. The prestige of the country is at stake with such distressed performance of the intelligence agencies!
