Tamil Nadu’s Big Move Against CBI After DMK Minister’s Arrest

Chennai:

Tamil Nadu today joined the ranks of opposition-ruled states that have withdrawn a general consent for investigation that the Central Bureau of Investigation enjoys. The Central agency will not have to take the state government’s permission to undertake investigation in the state and against its residents.

The DMK government’s move came hours after its minister V Senthil Balaji, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case.

The government had taken strong offence to the Enforcement Directorate’s move to searched the home and office of the power minister. Chief Minister MK Stalin had called it “an assault on federalism”.

Earlier today, in a statement, Chief Minister MK Stalin had said, “In a needless way they (ED) has breached into the secretariat that has the state’s security related confidential files and have staged a drama entering the Minister’s office”.

“They wanted to show that they would raid even entering the secretariat”.

Already nine states — Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana and West Bengal — which they call a precaution against the misuse of Central agencies.

Though the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act 1946 makes prior permission of the state mandatory, in 1989 and 1992 some exceptions were made for few categories of cases. This has been revoked.

However the state government’s move will not impact investigations by the Enforcement Directorate or the National Investigation Agency.

The last state to pull the plug on the CBI was Punjab. In November 2020, the Congress government led by Amarinder Singh withdrew the general consent extended to the CBI for conducting investigations in the state. It came on the heels of a similar move by Jharkhand, where the Congress is part of the ruling alliance.