Amid the opposition’s ongoing charge against the BJP over misuse of central agencies, Tamil Nadu on Wednesday became the latest state to withdraw general consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
This means the central probe agency will first have to receive the state’s permission to begin an investigation. Tamil Nadu became the tenth Indian state to withdraw its general consent for investigations by the CBI.
Other states to withdraw general consent to the CBI include Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Mizoram. However, Maharashtra reversed the decision after BJP came back to power in the state by toppling the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government.
For the unversed, the CBI despite being a central agency is governed by the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act (DPSEA), a legislature that makes the probe agency a special wing of Delhi Police and thus its original jurisdiction is limited to Delhi.
For matters exceeding the jurisdiction of Delhi, the CBI needs the consent of the state government in which it seeks to conduct an investigation. However, the Supreme Court and high courts can order a CBI probe in any state even without its consent.
While CBI will now need to obtain the Tamil Nadu government’s permission to investigate any new case in the state from now onwards, the agency can still probe the old and pending cases.
This comes on the same day as Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister V Senthil Balaji’s arrest by the Enforcement Directorate. It has drawn sharp reactions from several opposition leaders, who accused the ruling BJP of targeting rival party leaders.
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