Who in CBI decides an IAS officer's arrest? An ex-CBI director answers

THERE was a high-voltage drama on Thursday when CBI raided the residence of DMK leader MK Stalin barely two days after the party deserted the UPA government. The PMO which controls CBI administratively, disapproved the timing of the move, prompting the investigative agency releasing a statement saying “there was no intention whatsoever to target any particular individual”. Based on former CBI director RK Raghavan’s piece in Hindu published a year ago, BoI presents here 7 FAQs that answer the queries like who in CBI decides when an IAS officer needs to be arrested:

Who takes the decision to arrest a bureaucrat?
It is normally taken at the level of CBI Director “who thinks many times over before agreeing to this course of action”.
What’s about any witch-hunt?
It gives the investigating agency “no pleasure to go after its colleagues in the administrative service”. The issue cropped up when IAS officers were visibly upset over the arrest of two of their Andhra colleagues by CBI.
Does CBI destroy someone’s reputation?
The CBI is fully aware that it is “easy to destroy a reputation than build one over decades”.
Why not? Officers get upset at being hauled up for the misdeeds of their ministers?
Let’s face the penalty for not obliging a dishonest minister. It could be an unwelcome transfer or “a Siberian posting, as my mentor, the venerable V.R. Lakshminarayan once put it so colourfully”.
Why bureaucrats are so pliable?
The pliability is because of their desire to enlarge their career prospects. The Shah Commission said: “Where they were only required to bend, they actually crawled!”
Isn’t it difficult to be honest these days?
“I realise how difficult it is to be courageous and honest these days, when venality rules the corridors of government”. But “a few years of pain resulting from an honest course of action is very much preferable to the ignominy of criminal action for having been party to dishonesty”.
What’s about bona-fide mistake?
“The CBI will not hang you if you have been only guilty of a bona-fide mistake. But it will, if you have been dishonest and unprofessional in pandering to the designs of a rapacious minister”.