The Union government on Thursday told the Supreme Court that the Central Bureau of Investigation is an independent body and is not controlled by the Centre, reported Live Law.
The submission, made by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to a bench of Justices BR Gavai and Justice Sandeep Mehta, came as part of the proceedings in a petition filed by the West Bengal government in 2021.
The state government has accused the Central Bureau of Investigation of launching investigations in several cases in West Bengal without its consent.
The West Bengal government had withdrawn its general consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation in 2019. Without general consent, the agency is required to approach the state government on a case-to-case basis and seeking permission before conducting any inquiry.
The petition was filed under Article 131 of the Indian Constitution that empowers the Supreme Court to hear disputes between the Centre and one or more states.
Objecting to the maintainability of the plea, the solicitor general said that the West Bengal government’s suit had been filed against the Union government.
“It is submitted that the Union of India has neither registered any case in the state, neither can it register any case, nor it has been investigating any case,” Mehta told the court. “On the other hand, as per the pending proceedings, it is the CBI which has registered FIRs [first information reports] and is investigating cases.”
The solicitor general pointed out that the Central Bureau of Investigation has not been made a respondent in the petition. He said the agency is an “independent legal person and has a separate legal identity outside the Union of India”.
He also told the court that the task of supervising the law enforcement agency and registering any offence by it does not rest with the Central government.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the West Bengal government, argued that the Central Bureau of Investigation is an investigating arm of the government.
“The CBI cannot say that I will not accept what the Union says,” he told the court. “I am an independent agency…It will be a shocking statement to make.”
Sibal also said that the state was not seeking any legal directives to the agency.
“I am saying that as long as I withdraw my consent, your investigating agency cannot enter my state,” he said. “In a federal structure, you cannot do it unless the court does it under Article 226 of the Indian Constitution. This does not apply, for example under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act or the National Investigation Agency Act.”
CBI investigations in West Bengal
The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the West Bengal government to cooperate with the Central Bureau of Investigation in a case about alleged land grabbing and sexual harassment by suspended Trinamool Congress leader Shahjahan Sheikh in state’s Sandeshkhali village.
The High Court had directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to take up the matter after hearing public interest litigations seeking an independent probe into the allegations. The bench noted the central agency’s submission that the state government had not been cooperating with its verification of over 900 complaints in connection with the allegations of land grabbing.
The Central Bureau of Investigation is investigating several other cases in West Bengal, including the 2016 Narada bribery case in connection with which two state ministers, Firhad Hakim and Subrata Mukherjee, and two former ministers, Madan Mitra and Sovan Chatterjee, were arrested in 2021.
In July last year, former state minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested in connection with the alleged School Service Commission staff recruitment scam. On Monday, the Supreme Court on Monday stayed a Calcutta High Court order directing the Central Bureau of Investigation to look into appointments made by the West Bengal School Service Commission.
The central agency has also questioned the wife of Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee, who is Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, in an alleged coal pilferage case.
In August, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Anubrata Mondal, the party’s Birbhum district chief, in a cattle smuggling case. Party leader and Halishahar municipality chairman Raju Sahani was arrested in a chit fund scam case in September. In January last year, the organisation said it was investigating Mondal’s alleged complicity in the 2022 Bogtui massacre in which 10 people were killed.
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