Arvind Gunasekar 
New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states like Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Goa have re-issued ‘general consent’ for the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate alleged corruption and other similar cases against Union government employees in its territorial jurisdiction.
Through the freshly issued notification under Section 6 of the The Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, these states have also given permission for the Central agency to register and investigate cases against ‘private persons’ too.
Earlier ‘general consent’ only allowed the Central agency to register and investigate cases against employees of the Union government and those of the centre’s public sector undertakings. The new notifications by these states has a significant addition of ‘private persons’.
Previous ‘general consents’ given by states under Section 6 of DSPE Act had no mention of ‘private persons’.
An excerpt of a notification issued by a state government in 1989.
The identical notifications issued by Madhya Pradesh, Goa and Odisha, say:
“…[A]lleged to have been committed by employees of the Central Government, Central Public Sector Undertaking and private persons (whether acting separately or in conjunction with the employees of Central Government/Central Government Undertakings).”
A former government functionary told The Wire “The wording of this new notification is surprising… as these (notifications) are identical, the text must have been shared by Delhi.”
Madhya Pradesh’s notification.
While prior permission of the state government is still mandatory for the CBI to register and investigate cases against state government employees, this new notification has widened its ambit when it comes to the investigation of corruption and similar cases in states.
This effectively means that the CBI can register a case against a ‘private person’ in these states even if no Union government employee is involved in the offence.
This change will have a very significant impact on the ability of India’s apex investigating agency, once referred to as a ‘caged parrot‘ by the Supreme Court, to act upon private individuals.
Significantly, earlier this month, the Union government admitted a suit filed by the West Bengal government against the Union government over the fact that the CBI had registered cases in the state without prior permission even after the state withdrew its ‘general consent’.