P Chidambaram heads GoM, to decide on CBI autonomy

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has constituted a Group of Ministers (GoM) to decide on the autonomy of theA Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The move comes after the Supreme Court severely reprimanded the government for interfering in the investigations in the coal scam carried out by the CBI. The ministers' group would be headed by Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram and will include Law Minister Kapil Sibal, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and Minister of State for Personnel V Narayanasamy.

The Supreme Court made a scathing attack on the government last week. It called the CBI "a caged parrot" which "speaks in its master's voice" after the investigating agency admitted in an affidavit that ex-law minister Ashwani Kumar, including A joint secretaries of the Prime Minister's Office and the coal ministry made certain changes in the report on the allocation of coal blocks. During the hearing, the Supreme Court had asked the Centre whether it was contemplating a law to make the A CBI independent and insulate it from external interferences. The country's top law officer, Attorney General GE Vahanvati, who is also smeared by the coal scandal for seeing a draft of the CBI's probe report, had agreed with the Supreme Court in giving more autonomy to the agency.