Unflinching Moral Compass

Emergency occurred in India in June 1975. Fifty years down the Ganga, I recall my own two brushes with it. One, which nearly cost me my position. Let me recount it first.

This one was in 1976, and I had just moved to the no. 1 position among CBI SPs in Kolkata.

The morning mail had brought orders. A Deputy Collector, Central Excise in then Calcutta, was "persuading" Golden Tobacco Co., then under Sanjay Dalmia with a retired Intelligence Bureau chief as its Executive Head, to feather his nest. In the Anti-Corruption Wing of CBI Kolkata, as its Superintendent 1, I was ordered to book him. The orders came with a caveat: no coercive measures were to be applied against Golden Tobacco Company. The bribe payer was not to be put under any coercive investigation! It was a bizarre order, but then, it was Emergency 1975. No search, no interrogation, no arrest. All specifically forbidden.

I was a CBI insider, UPSC recruited, not a deputationist from the Indian Police Service. Law, and not my superior, was my master in matters of investigation. The superior was only my master in matters of administration. So I decided to disregard the order, but not disobey it. My job was to prove that the unearthing of the crime in its entirety was believable—i.e., extracting the evidence: if the hush money was paid, who paid; what were his means; was he muscled, or was he a partner in crime with the Golden Tobacco Company? If it was the latter, were they complicit? I needed evidence to decide one way or the other. That material would only come from Golden Tobacco. If not by searching, how was I to get it? Then it struck me: I could ask them under the specific section of procedural law. Section 94 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) armed the investigator to demand documents during investigation. I took the decision that on the same day, at the same time, the accused Deputy Collector was to be searched under another section of CrPC, which was a coercive provision of law. CBI officers and other ranks, along with witnesses and uniformed men of Calcutta Police assisting the CBI (who would be in civvies), would demand relevant documents from the Golden Tobacco Company—an exercise of authority.

The result was not unanticipated! Golden Tobacco’s Executive Head, a retired Intelligence Bureau chief, swiftly called the Director, CBI Devender Sen, already seven years in that position—the longest tenure ever!

The next thing, starting at 9:30 am on a winter morning, lightning calls came in a stream (mobiles came only in 1995–96). Starting from aides to the Director CBI, to number two in the hierarchy at CBI headquarters—all called me to explain my action. Why was I carrying out a search of Golden Tobacco? The question was framed in as many different ways as the callers came thick and fast. My patient and repetitive explaining—that it was not a search—seemed to fall on deaf ears. The upshot was, it appeared that I had disobeyed the Director and the Emergency of 1975 would extract its pound of flesh from me. I prepared myself for the worst. From the first CBI insider riding high (holding a post the preserve of deputationists from the Indian Police Service, IPS), I was getting the boot.

Then a little miracle occurred. Devender Sen, the Director of CBI, called me. Obviously, before giving me the boot, he wanted to hear from the “offender”, I thought. I put my best foot forward. I explained that I had not violated his orders. My action was not a search and seizure operation. But investigation did demand that I find why they succumbed to the illegal monetary demand of the corrupt public servant. CrPC has a provision to ask both accused and witness to produce, and if required, hand over before witnesses and under a receipt, the document in question.

He heard me. No interrogation. No interruption. At the end of my "soliloquy," all he said was, "Since it's not a search and seizure operation, Golden Tobacco can seek time to collect the record you have asked." I said the law allows that. He responded, they will.

He did not ring off and offered a reason for his intervention. He outranked me by four places. He did not need to. My good fairy was being kind! He said Golden Tobacco company top honchos were members of the Indian Tobacco Council. What was unsaid was that to shame them was not possible, and therefore he had disallowed a search and seizure operation to start with. He never said it, but I realised that my manner of demanding records could have been avoided.

Many had called me that winter morning, and all hinted at a fall for me. The Emergency was sure to teach me to obey. It turned out otherwise. It gave my career a fillip. To me, D Sen, who had often pulled me up in my first rank, will always remain a great Director, CBI.

The other instance also relates to Calcutta. I joined CBI in 1963. Later, I was promoted as Superintendent, as a branch head. The Emergency came in June 1975. As it neared a year, I, as SP 1 CBI Kolkata, and my DG CBI Kolkata were summoned to Delhi to meet the Director, CBI, at a very short notice. We flew in, and so did many branch heads from different states. Only Director CBI presided. None of the other CBI officers in Delhi who outranked us were in the conference.

Then the Director CBI launched into his address. We were made to memorise five questions related to the Emergency. The questions, each framed by him, were supposed to elicit a reaction from the one asked, which would, unknown to him, convey how he/she felt about the current days under Emergency. Those questions will go with me to the grave. We were tasked to throw the questions in social gatherings, elsewhere to the unwary, and from the reaction elicited assess the general reaction to the days of Emergency, and report back to him—and him alone—in top secret messages.

He invited questions. A free-for-all followed. This was not CBI work! Questions, tentative at first, later in full flow. D Sen was a taciturn person, impatient with questions. Any questions. I remembered SP CBI Visakhapatnam, Dora, asking some very blunt questions. This was a different D. Sen. He answered all of us. He was patience personified. We had a fortnight to meet the deadline. I did my part within the deadline.

The grapevine says, uniformly, the CBI Superintendents reported that people hated the Emergency days. Director CBI advised against a General Election, we learnt. At least, that is reported.

But the General Election did take place, and the rest is history.

A postscript is necessary. The IB chief who reportedly assured Mrs. Gandhi and the Hand romping home was rewarded by the Janata Party. He remained IB chief and was asked to take charge of CBI too. Devender Sen got the sack, faced Shah Commission. He was briefly jailed.

And—no, Golden Tobacco was not complicit.

The writer served in CBI from 1963 to 1996. Views expressed are personal