The Supreme Court has considered the West Bengal’s Gov’t lawsuit moved against Centre for affirming CBI’s registering of FIRs in the state’s jurisdiction despite withdrawal of general consent from the state on Wednesday.
Supreme Court Approached
Bengal Government knocked the doors of the top court regarding Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for conducting investigation and registering FIRs in the state’s territory in the face of withdrawing the general consent in the year 2018. The verdict was reserved for the same lawsuit on May 8 for maintainability. On Wednesday, panel of two judges Justice BR Gavai and Sandeep Mehta approved the procedure of the suit with accordance to law.
Advocate Arguments
High profile advocate Kapil Sibal from West Bengal’s side argued that the State had denied consent to the probe agency in November, 2018 after which the Centre should’ve been restricting the agency to act any further in the concerned state’s jurisdiction. Here as a counter, the Solicitor General, Tushar Mehta appearing for the Centre, argued further that the Union Government or any of its constituents have no hold over the CBI probes. Also, the Centre rebounded by adding remonstration regarding the maintainability of the suit by Banerjee Government as it holds no ground for cause of action against the Centre.
Article 131 of the Constitution
The State Government has invoked Article 131 of the Indian Constitution by filing an original lawsuit against the Centre for not obligating the federal agency’s probe in spite dissent for the same. Article 131 grants the Apex Court to provide original jurisdiction on disputes between the Centre and one or more states.
