Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi got the analysis of what ails the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) right, but probably erred on the remedy. He clearly identified political interference as the reason why the agency, which does a good job when dealing with cases with no political overtones, fumbles when political factors attend on a case. He suggested insulating the CBI from the political executive by making it a statutory body on par with the Comptroller and Auditor General. This, however, would be dysfunctional. The right approach, to prevent political interference in its working, would be to retain the CBI's accountability to the executive but to make the body simultaneously accountable to a committee of Parliament and the National Human Rights Commission. Such multiple lines of accountability should provide the agency with the autonomy it needs, while preventing it from going rogue. A statutory body accountable to no one but its own innate professionalism is a dangerous thing. It should not exist. All parts of the State should be accountable to the people, the ultimate sovereign in a democracy, in some fashion or the other. For any police agency to be not under the control of the executive would be dysfunctional. The goal is to prevent it from being under partisan control. The way to achieve this goal is to make it accountable to a body that can hold the executive also to account. Such a body would be a committee of Parliament, say, the Standing Committee of the home ministry. All police agencies should ideally also have a line of accountability to the human rights watchdog. All watchdogs, in turn, must be accountable to the appropriate committees of Parliament. In addition to control and accountability, other parts of the CBI's functioning deserve attention. Training and professionalism, for example, and its own cadre of officers, so that state-level police officers who develop political allegiances do not bring these along with them to the CBI when they arrive on deputation. Recent advances in police technology must be studied and relevant bits acquired. There is no magic bullet for CBI reform.