Top Court Says No to Plea by 14 Oppn Parties Against Centre's Misuse of CBI & ED

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, 5 April, declined to entertain a petition by fourteen political parties alleging that the Union government was misusing central investigating agencies like the CBI and ED against opposition leaders.

A bench of Chief Justice of India  DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimhaand JB Pardiwala noted that political leaders were on the "same footing as common citizens" while refusing to entertain the plea.

"So someone collects crores from common pensioners, no payment made and so multiple FIRs are filed...and the case comes here. Can we say that there can be no arrest here? Once we accept that political leaders are absolutely on same footing as common citizens with no higher immunity.. then how can we say there can be no arrests unless there is a three pronged test which is satisfied."

Supreme Court

What the petition said: The petitioners argued that has been a significant rise in the use of criminal processes against opposition leaders and other citizens who were exercising their fundamental right to protest against the Union government.

The plea said that the CBI and ED were being employed to target those who were disagreeing with the centre and to entirely crush political dissent..

What else happened in the courtroom: The court added that petitioners were using statistics to try and get the court to frame guidelines.

"You are trying to extrapolate the statistics into solid legal guidelines. So now these statistics only relates to the politicians," CJI Chandrachud said.

Following this, the petitioners sought permission to withdraw the plea which was the Court allowed.

The following parties had filed the petition:

Indian National Congress (INC)

• Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)

• Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD)

• Bharat Rasthra Samithi (BRS)

• All Indian Trinamool Congress (TMC)

• Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)

• Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)

• Shiv Sena (UBT)

• JMM

• JD(U)

• Communist Party of India (Marxist)

• CPI

• Samajwadi Party

• J&K National Conference