CBI: The Caged Tiger?

India’s premier investigating agency vs the challenge of Executive interference.

Cue Words	Notes
Analyze the main institutional and autonomy issues plaguing the CBI.	Legal Basis: still governed by the pre-independence DSPE Act 1946. General Consent: withdrawal of consent by various states (Federal tension). Selection: high-power committee (PM, LoP, CJI) but operational dependency on DoPT.
Summarize the way forward for reinforcing CBI's institutional independence.	- Success lies in moving from "Suspicion" to "Accountability-Saturated & Independence-Verified Agency Saturation."

- CBI is governed by the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act 1946, tracing to the Special Police Establishment formed in 1941 to weed out corruption in war-time procurement; SC has developed jurisprudence of self-restraint on ordering CBI probes under Article 32/226, requiring systemic failure, involvement of high-ranking officials, or reasonable doubt about police neutrality, since public order (Entry 1) and police (Entry 2) are State subjects. - CBI was established by an MHA executive resolution in 1963 (absorbing the Special Police Establishment) following Santhanam Committee recommendations on corruption prevention; its investigative authority derives from the pre-existing DSPE Act 1946 (which did not itself create CBI as a new statutory entity), and it functions as an attached office under the Department of Personnel & Training (Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions).