CBI chief Ranjit Sinha admits he is a ‘caged parrot’

Central Bureau of Investigation chief Ranjit Sinha today accepted the Supreme Court's observation on Wednesday that the country's premier investigating agency was a "caged parrot" that "speaks in its master's voice".

Asked by reporters about his views on the apex court's caged parrot remark, Sinha said, "Whatever Supreme Court said is correct."

However, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said that the court had just made a comment and it was not an order; and that the government had done nothing wrong.

"If it was a written order, then we would have reacted to it. The government has done nothing wrong ... the investigation has not been affected and there was no intervention in the investigation," Digvijaya Singh told reporters.

The court made the 'caged parrot' observation in reaction to Sinha's second affidavit filed on Monday which stated that law minister Ashwani Kumar and senior officials of the Prime Minister's Office and the coal ministry had made certain changes in the CBI's report on the coal block allocations scandal (See: CBI director apologises to SC for letting law ministry alter draft report).

The bench headed by Justice R M Lodha was irate that the CBI had discussed the preliminary report of an investigation commissioned by it with not only Kumar but mere bureaucrats in the PMO and the coal ministry before submitting it to the court.

The bench also asked the government whether it was contemplating a law to insulate the CBI from political interference. It also made it clear that if government dithered, the court would step in.