Who is Q? Twenty years ago even a school dropout would have given you a low down on Ottavio Quattrocchi, his closeness to Sonia Gandhi and thus the Gandhi family and how he made good the payoff in the Bofors gun deal case. Today, an IAS aspirant would be at his wit's end to describe Q - a middle-man who siphoned off crores as Bofors payoff, a good samaritan flogged for being close to the Gandhis or a maverick who has used loopholes in the Indian criminal jurisprudence to come around it. The IAS-aspirant should thank the pliant Central Bureau of Investigation for his dilemma.

In fact, Q, the Bofors payoff and the way it has been handled by various Congress regimes is a study in public administration that can come handy for an IAS aspirant. Who knows, one day, he may be part and parcel of the same CBI, known for its ever-ready willingness to bend backwards for the party in power. Twenty years into the country's biggest payoff scam of the century, one involving the high and mighty and their financial shenanigans, one which triggered a political campaign against corruption, one which made the most powerful 'sarkar' ever in Indian parliamentary history fall from public grace and subsequently voted out of power, questions are still being raised over the conduct of the CBI and its role vis-a-vis the accused.

Over the years the parties in power at the centre have used the Central Bureau of Investigation to further their own politcal interests. In fact, after the recent clean chit by CBI to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler, accused in 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the power of "superintendance" over CBI by the Union government was seen as the most pervert misuse of the investigating agency in the garb of impartial investigation and fair play. The main opposition BJP was causitc in its remark terming CBI as Congress Bureau of Investigation.

In fact, Jarnail Singh's highly deplorable act of hurling a shoe at Home Minister Chidambram can be traced to the emotional groundswell of pent-up anger over the CBI's overzealousness in its out-of-the-way bid to give 'clean chit' to Tytler. The CBI's stance in court came as a shot in the arm for Tytler who had party ticket in one hand and was now armed with the moral right to contest, the stains of anti-Sikh riots washed away in one stroke by the detergent called the CBI.

'It is too much of a coincidence that in sensitive matters, the outcome of the CBI's investigation invariably depends on the political equation of the accused with the ruling power, and it changes without compunction with the change in that equation.' former CJI JS Verma aptly observed.

Justice Verma had precisely struck at the root of the problem when in the Jain Hawala case ( 1997 ) he held : The government's statutory power of "superintendence" over the CBI does not empower it to interfere with or regulate the investigation into any offence conducted by the CBI. The CBI's power to investigate being statutory, it is insulated from any extraneous influence, including that of the concerned minister.

But ten years later the same Supreme Court was to observe in the Taj corridor scam: "In matters after matters, we find that the efficacy and ethics of the governmental authorities are progressively coming under challenge...if this continues, a day might come when the rule of law will stand reduced to 'a rope of sand'."

Impartial investigation by CBI has been affected by political prejudices. The coalition era has dealt a severe blow to the fairness of the CBI and has hastened the pace of its slow death as an impartial investigating agency. The CBI has been deliberately kept at short leash by its political masters to browbeat a certain political party into falling in line or garner support from a party on promises of diluting CBI cases against them. From Mayawati to Mulayam, Laloo Yadav to Jayalalitha everyone has been part and parcel of this beautifully synchronised game of subtle poltical blackmail directed with panache by the party in power at the centre, with each player securing its own interests for its political survival and longevity.

The Jain-Hawala case, anti-Sikh riot case, Taj Corridor scam, Mulayam's disproportionate assets case, and the Bofors case have been cogent examples of how CBI has compromised its independence in investigating cases incluing who's who of public life. This goes against the grain of public psyche which looks up to the CBI as an impartial agency that does not shy away from taking on even the political and administrative bigwigs. But the end result as seen in the case of CBI probe in anti-Sikh riots, Jain Hawala or Bofors case leaves the citizen high and dry and sets him thinking whether CBI after all has been pursuing a political agenda and favouring the accused when it is expected to be fair, impartial and independent in all its pursuits.

It is in this backdrop, perhaps, that BJP leader Arun Jetley promises to set up a commission to probe the role of CBI and the accused were the NDA gets voted to power. The NDA's dream of seizing power in Delhi might just be a wishful thinking but the import of the concern raised by the main opposition party should not be lost on a common citizen who expects the government to treat criminals and law breakers, irrespective of their place in society, with an iron-hand. And therefore expects all investigating arms of the government to be fair and beyond politcal reproach.

The way CBI has been made to handle the entire Bofors case it calls for a national debate whether the investigating agency has shunned the objectives for which it was set up during World War II and rechristened in its present avtaar in 1963.

And until that happens keep guessing who 'Q' is. A criminal or a good samaritan who just helped this country get booming Bofors guns and therefore deemed to be a friend of India and a friend of CBI. And for whose service the Indian government ought consider conferring Bharat Ratna on him.