Vineet Narain and the Direction to Give the CVC Statutory Status

In one line

A journalist's petition about a seized diary produced, five years later, a set of directions that gave India a statutory Vigilance Commission, a Central Bureau of Investigation with a fixed-term Director, and the technique of the continuing mandamus.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: in Vineet Narain v. Union of India, (1998) 1 SCC 226, the Supreme Court, on a petition under article 32 complaining of the failure to investigate the hawala or Jain diaries case, struck down Directive No. 4.7(3) of the Single Directive requiring prior sanction before the Central Bureau of Investigation could even begin an inquiry against senior officers, holding that it could not be sustained as an exercise of the Central Government's power of superintendence under section 4(1) of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act 1946; and, exercising the powers under articles 32, 141, 142 and 144 to fill the vacuum until Parliament legislated, directed that the Central Vigilance Commission be given statutory status, that the Central Vigilance Commissioner be selected by a Committee of the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and appointed by the President, that the Commission be entrusted with superintendence over the functioning of the Delhi Special Police Establishment, and that the Director of that establishment be selected by a Committee headed by the Central Vigilance Commissioner and hold a minimum tenure of two years.

The case, worked

Facts. Vineet Narain v. Union of India, (1998) 1 SCC 226, AIR 1998 SC 889, decided on 18 December 1997 by J.S. Verma CJ, S.P. Bharucha and S.C. Sen JJ. In 1991 the Central Bureau of Investigation seized diaries and notebooks from persons connected with the hawala, or unofficial foreign exchange, trade. The books recorded very large payments to persons identified by initials, said to be senior politicians and public servants. For years nothing was done. Vineet Narain, a journalist, and others petitioned under article 32, seeking not only that the hawala matter be investigated by an agency in which the Court had confidence, but, in a second class of relief, that directions be given so that such failures by investigating agencies and their political superiors should not be repeated.

The procedure the Court adopted, which is itself examinable. Rather than hear the matter through and issue a writ of mandamus, leaving it to the authorities to comply, the Court took the view that, given the political personalities to be investigated and the time already lost, it was better to keep the petitions pending while the investigations were carried on, monitoring them from time to time and issuing orders. Its reasoned orders ran from 1995 to 1997. The Court made clear that it would do what it permissibly could to see that the investigations progressed while ensuring that it did not direct or channel those investigations or in any way prejudice the right of those who might be accused to a full and fair trial, and that the task of the monitoring court would end once a charge sheet was filed. That is the technique now known as the continuing mandamus, and chapter 870 takes it up.