Supreme Court reserves verdict on maintainability of West Bengal's suit on CBI probe

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its judgement on an original suit filed by the West Bengal government alleging that the CBI continued to probe cases from the state despite withdrawal of consent.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta wrapped up the hearing on preliminary objections made by the Centre on maintainability of the suit filed under Article 131 of the Constitution.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, told the court that a state government cannot claim a right to issue omnibus, sweeping, and overarching directions to withdraw consent for a CBI probe into any matter.

"The state government can exercise the power to grant/refuse consent only on a case-to-case basis only," Mehta said.

He asked the court to dismiss the suit.

Mehta also said, "The CBI is not under the Centre. It is an independent body and not the one coming under the central government. Therefore, the central government cannot be sued in the matter."

He further accused the West Bengal government of trying to litigate the same issue in two different cases before the apex court.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Bengal government, told the court that the CBI could not probe cases concerning West Bengal without the state government's general consent.

"The Delhi Special Police Establishment Act impacts the federal structure of this country. General Consent is necessary before you get entry in the state," he said.

He also pointed out that once the CBI got foothold in a state, soon after the ED also entered for investigating the predicate offence. "It has huge ramifications on the polity of this country. All of this has enormous implications for the Indian polity," he said.

The West Bengal government had on November 16, 2018, withdrawn the general consent accorded to the CBI to conduct probe and raids in the state.

In its suit, the state government alleged that the CBI has been filing FIRs and proceeding with its probe, despite the state having withdrawn the general consent to the federal agency to probe cases within its territorial jurisdiction.

Article 131 of the Constitution deals with the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction in a dispute between the Centre and one or more states.