“It is unfortunate that CBI is government department and not independent constitutional authority, but in any case, the CBI Director should not act going against his conscious,” former Director of CBI Dr. D.R.Karthikeyan said on Thursday in his address at Ahmedabad Management Association.

Karthikeyan said, while 99% cases of CBI proceed smoothly, just 1% highly political sensitive cases create dispute. He also raised the issue of overburden and said, “while one investigation is undergoing at advance stage, the other fresh case comes in, and the older case is being put aside”.

“When Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs called me to get inputs on Criminal laws, the first thing I asked them was that they should give independence to CBI Director as much as he wants to have. Another thing I told the committee was that, CBI should not be government department anymore, but it should be a constitutional authority like CVC, CAG, ECI etc. At present, there are different things that can influence the investigation, including inducting the officer, deputation order, promotion etc. Actually the CBI should be an independent organization answerable to court only. But the politicians would not allow do that,” Karthikeyan added.

When asked whether he was put under pressure some time by the government when he himself was Director of CBI, Dr. Karthikeyan replied, “my conviction to be independent was well-known and therefore nobody attempted that.”

Dr. Kathikeyan is a person who investigated Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination case successfully. Though he was Tamil, based in Tamilnadu, he fearlessly arrested LTTE brigade involved in the case. When asked about this, he said, “I was warned that I could be killed by LTTE, but I continued my probe in that direction. I believe, if death has to come tonight, it can’t be prevented. I should not spoil my evening thinking about that.”

Dr. Karthikeyan has authored a bestseller book “Triumph of truth” on Rajiv Gandhi assassination case investigation.