The Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI's) demand for more autonomy should not be viewed with suspicion, CBI Director Ranjit Sinha said.

During an event in New Delhi on Sunday, Mr. Sinha said that grumbled that people in the government snubbed his suggestion for granting more autonomy to the agency. He stressed that the CBI did not want to be above the law by seeking more functional and financial autonomy, adding that it was not anti-national agency.

Defending the agency's demand for more autonomy, he said, "Why the demand (for more autonomy) should be viewed with suspicion? We are not anti-national. We are an important pillar of the criminal justice system."

He also grumbled that a police officer is always asked to perform duty without having a look at the rule book, and that nothing had been done to bring a real change in the working of police.

He acknowledged that autonomy and answerability are two sides of the same coin that could not be separated from each other. When asked about his recent comments about "trust deficit," he said trust deficit meant the lack of trust that people have in police force.

Mr. Sinha, an IPS officer of 1974 batch, has been supervising a number of high-profile investigations in various multi-crore scams, including coal blocks allocation scam and 2G spectrum allocation scam.