Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is a premier investigating police agency in India, and is an elite force which plays a major role in preservation of values in public life and in ensuring the health of the national economy. It is a governmental agency under Government of India. The services of its investigating officers are irrefutably sought for by all major criminal probes in the country. The CBI is the official Interpol unit for India.

The agency was established in 1941 as the Special Police Establishment, and was tasked with simple domestic security outlining. The Central Bureau of Investigation was later established on 1 April 1963. Its motto is "Industry, Impartiality, Integrity".

The agency headquarters is a state-of-the-art building located in the capital, New Delhi. The agency has other field offices located in major cities throughout India, such as Mumbai. The CBI is controlled by the Department of Personnel and Training in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension of the Union Government, which is usually headed by a Union Minister who reports directly to the Prime Minister. While analogous in structure to the FBI, the CBI's powers and functions are severely limited to specific crimes based on Acts (mainly the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946). The current CBI Director is Ranjit Sinha.

The Central Bureau of Investigation traces its origin to the Special Police Establishment (SPE) (Hindi: विशेष पुलिस संस्थापन Vishesh Police Sansthapan), which was set up in 1941 by the government. The functions of the SPE were to investigate cases of bribery and corruption in transactions with the War & Supply Department of India, which was set up during the course of World War II, with its headquarters at Lahore. The Superintendent of War Department and SPE was Khan Bahadur Qurban Ali Khan who later on became the Governor of North West Frontier Province on the creation of Pakistan. The first legal advisor of War Department was Rai Sahib Karam Chand Jain. Even after the end of the War, the need for a Central Government agency to investigate cases of bribery and corruption by Central Government employees was felt. Rai Sahib Karam Chand Jain continued to remain the Legal Advisor when this department was later transferred to the Home Department under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act that was brought into force in 1946.

The scope of SPE was enlarged to cover all departments of the Govt. of India. The jurisdiction of the SPE extended to all the Union Territories and could also be extended to the States with the consent of the State Government concerned. Sardar Patel, the first Deputy Prime Minister of free India and in charge of the Home Department, took special interest in weeding out corruption from the erstwhile princely states like Jodhpur, Rewa, Tonk etc. Sardar Patel directed the Legal Advisor Karam Chand Jain to monitor the criminal proceedings against the Dewans/ Chief Ministers of these states.

The DSPE acquired its popular current name, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), through a Home Ministry resolution dated 1.4.1963. In due course, with the setting up of a large number of public sector undertakings, the employees of these undertakings were also brought under CBI purview. Similarly, with the nationalisation of the banks in 1969, the Public Sector Banks and their employees also came within the ambit of the CBI.

As the CBI established a reputation of being India's premier investigative agency with adequate resources to deal with complicated cases, demands were made on it to take up investigation of cases of more conventional crime such as murder, kidnapping, terrorism, etc. Apart from this, the Supreme Court and even the various High Courts of the country also started entrusting such cases for investigation to the CBI on petitions filed by aggrieved parties. Taking into account the fact that several cases falling under this category were being taken up for investigation by the CBI, it was therefore decided in 1987 to constitute two investigation divisions in the CBI, namely, Anti-Corruption Division and Special Crimes Division, the latter dealing with cases of conventional crime, besides economic offences. The CBI reports to the central Indian government and not to the individual states.