Questionable actions

The Narendra Modi sarkar apparently has two sets of rules. One is for us, the people on the street, who are being put through the wringer of demonetisation. For the past one month, we have been asked to prove our fealty to the laws of the land. Though the PM has assured us that our agni pariksha will last 20 more days, no one really has any clear idea how the banks and black economy will look like on the 21st day. On the other hand, the Prime Minister has been sidestepping conventions, even the ones consecrated by law, in making appointments to positions that demand more than passing obeisance to the notion of impartiality.  The appointment of an interim Director of the CBI invites doubts about the government's claims on a new “normalcy”.

Ignoring the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Vineet Narain case, Rakesh Asthana has been given additional charge of the CBI. Given that the senior-most officer was shifted out two days before Rakesh Asthana was given additional charge, it is not unreasonable for the Opposition and the civil society to contest the government’s motives. As the CBI is the premier agency for probing corruption cases, Modi should have taken the straight and narrow road.

As demonetisation reminds us, we are now living in a new paradigm. The old and, presumably, discredited practices of the past 70 years no longer work in Modi’s idea of India. But at the middle levels of bureaucracy, square pegs continue to fill up round holes — an engineer mans the sports department and a police officer looks after water resources. For a government that swears by the defence forces, it astonishingly failed to adhere to the past conventions in announcing the replacement for the Army Chief, Gen Dalbir Suhag, who will retire this month end. The same ad hocism prevailed in the appointment of the Enforcement Director. In the Supreme Court, its hapless counsel was hauled over the coals over the delay in the appointment of the country's first anti-graft ombudsman. It is time the Prime Minister raises his game if he wishes all his countrymen to do the same.