Explain Intelligence Bureau’s legality: HC
CHENNAI: The Karnataka high court sought an explanation from the Centre up-to March 30 to issue an executive order justifying IB’s existence. The court was responding to PIL filed by Mysore-based R N Kulkarni, who joined the IB in 1963 and retired in 1998 as its joint assistant director retired Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer pointing towards the complete absence of constitutional or statutory sanction for the agency
The agency was formed on December 23, 1887 by the British secretary of state. It was developed as a sub-sect of the Central Special Branch. “It has remained like a ghost, without a statute, all these 125 years,” said Kulkarni. Despite being a vital arm of national intelligence and security, IB has to explain for its evolution over the past 125 years is the British order issued in 1887.
IB has not been given legal status by even police organisations like CRPF and CISF. The Centre said the IB is a civilian organization and does not enjoy police powers and that IB did not have a formal charter, although an attempt was made to define its functioning on May 21, 2001.
The court asked the Centre to issue an executive order defining the powers, functions and duties of IB officers immediately failing which the court would be constrained to constitute a committee to go into the issue and submit a report. “How can the IB, established under an administrative order without any constitutional or statutory identity even after the commencement of the Constitution in 1950, be permitted to function as an apex national security apparatus,” questioned Kulkarni’s PIL.
