Published Dec 20, 2023 | 5:09 PM ⚊ Updated Dec 20, 2023 | 5:09 PM
10 states withdraw CBI general consent. (Creative Commons)
Ten states, including Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Telangana, have withdrawn general consent to the CBI to investigate cases in their respective jurisdictions, the Lok Sabha was informed on Wednesday, 20 December.
According to Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, 1946, the CBI needs consent from the respective state governments to conduct investigations in their jurisdiction.
Punjab, Jharkhand, Kerala, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Mizoram, Telangana, Meghalaya, and Tamil Nadu have withdrawn the general consent, Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh said in a written reply.
To a question, whether the Union government proposed to amend Section 6 of the DSPE Act, the minister said, “No”.
Asserting that withdrawal of general consent by some states has led to severe limitations in the CBI’s powers to investigate crucial cases, a Parliamentary panel had recently said there was a dire need to enact a new law and give wider powers to the federal agency so that it can probe cases without a “state’s consent and interference”.
The Tamil Nadu government withdrew the general consent hours after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Tamil Nadu Minister for Electricity, Prohibition and Excise V Senthil Balaji in a money laundering case on 14 June 2023.
“The Tamil Nadu government has today issued orders withdrawing the general consent given to certain types of cases in 1989 and 1992 under the aforesaid rule. Accordingly, the CBI has to, henceforth, get the Tamil Nadu government’s prior approval for conducting investigation in the state,” it said in a statement.
The Telangana Government Order (GO) No: 51, withdrawing the consent, was issued on 30 August 2022, ahead of then-chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s visit to Bihar the next day where he, along with his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar, demanded that all Opposition-ruled states should withdraw the general consent given to the CBI.
After the death by suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, when there were demands that the case be handed over to CBI — allegedly orchestrated by the BJP in its bid to embarrass the then-Uddhav Thackeray-led Opposition alliance government — the Maharashtra government withdrew the general consent given to CBI in October 2020.
The withdrawal made headlines in daily newspapers and sparked debates on TV news channels.
After Maharashtra, Opposition-led states like Punjab, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Kerala withdrew the general consent given to the CBI.
However, Maharashtra restored the consent on 20 October, 2021.
The N Chandrababu Naidu-led Andhra Pradesh government, in November 2018, had withdrawn the general given to the CBI, but YS Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government in 2019 restored the consent.
The northeastern state of Mizoram, led by then-Congress chief minister Lal Thanhawla, withdrew the general consent in 2015. Even after the formation of a NDA government in Mizoram in 2018, the state did not reinstate the general consent rule in the state.
The West Bengal government withdrew the general consent in November 2018, at the same time as Naidu did in Andhra Pradesh.
The Chhattisgarh government led by the Congress’ Bhupesh Baghel withdrew general consent in January 2019.
Interestingly, in March 2022 the NDA-led Meghalaya government also withdrew the consent given to the CBI.
CBI is governed by the Delhi Special Police Establishment (DSPE) Act, 1946, and the investigating agency has to have the consent of the states to take up the investigation of cases in their jurisdictions. The consent to CBI is either case-specific or a “general consent”.
When a state gives a general consent to the CBI, the agency is not required to seek permission every time it enters that state in connection with an investigation or for every case.
After the Act came into force, most of the states gave general consent to the CBI to help in the seamless investigation of cases of corruption against Union government employees in their states. This was consent by default.
If there is no general consent, the CBI has to seek permission from the state to register a case and investigate it.
It means the CBI will not be able to register any fresh case involving officials of the Union government or a private person in the state without the consent of the state government.
(With PTI inputs)
