YOUR BABY, NOW ! Outgoing CBI chief Joginder Singh discusses a point with his successor R C Sharma after relinquishing charge at the CBI headquarters in New Delhi on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI, July 1: On his first day in the office, CBI director R C Sharma passed five orders, two reversing the policies of his predecessor Joginder Singh. The CBI has also decided to fight the contempt case challenging the transfer of Singh on the grounds that it violates the court order prohibiting the transfer of officials investigating the fodder scam.

Explaining the order, a senior official in the ministry of personnel said that the court order prohibiting the transfer of officials applies only to investigating officers and ``a director is not an investigating official.''

Speaking to The Indian Express soon after taking over, Sharma said that his orders are in keeping with the policy of decentralisation in the agency. In one of his orders, Sharma has restored the power of recruitment of constables to the SP of each branch of the CBI. Singh had divested the SPs of this power. Similarly, on the controversial transfer policy of Singh by which several officials were to be reverted back to their parent cadre though they had been promised a permanent posting in the agency, Sharma said, ``corrective measures will be taken in deserving cases.'' Singh had reduced the deputation period of IPS officers from a maximum of ten to five years.

The fact that the new incumbent of this hot seat means business was also evident in his other orders which were all administrative. He has transferred R C Arora to the special crime branch in place of N R Wasan who shall replace him as deputy director, administration. In yet another order, M L Sharma has been asked to hold the additional charge of joint director administration.

Rebutting the charge that the sensitive cases like Bofors were taken away from him because he had deliberately adopted dilatory tactics, Sharma said that whether political or not, each case is the same for him but when asked why were most of the cases taken away from him he said, ``You should ask my predecessor. Only six to seven out of the 1,400 cases that the CBI registers were not with me.''

Clarifying an earlier statement that arrests would be an exception and not a rule, Sharma said that it was only in the context of government servants as ``it is the ethos of CBI and this is what our manual says. We are not like the local police. We have to be sure when we make the arrests so that later the person is not let off because of lack of evidence.''

Commenting on the controversial Bofors charge-sheet, Sharma said, ``what is done is done. I am not going to re-examine it.''

Meanwhile, the mood in CBI is ebullient as various staff members celebrated a change in guard with sweets and even sundry crackers. In a day packed with meetings and courtesy calls, Sharma took each congratulatory call and met the stream of officers and individuals who inundated the office with bouquets.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.