New Delhi, April 4
The Supreme Court will on Wednesday take up a petition filed by 14 political parties, including Congress, AAP, Rashtriya Janata Dal, DMK TMC and Bharat Rashtra Samiti alleging misuse of central probe agencies against political rivals.
A Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud had on March 24 agreed to take it up on April 5 after senior advocate AM Singhvi mentioned for urgent listing and hearing the PIL that sought pre-arrest and post-arrest guidelines.
The petitioners—Congress, DMK, RJD, BRS, Trinamool Congress, AAP, NCP, Shiv Sena (UBT), JMM, JD(U), CPI(M), CPI, Samajwadi Party, and JK National Conference – claimed that together they represented 45.19 per cent of the votes cast in the last State/UT Assembly Elections, and 42.5 per cent of the votes cast in the 2019 General Elections, and were in power in 11 states/UTs.
Alleging that 95 per cent of the cases were against opposition leaders, Singhvi had said asking for guidelines with regard to arrest, remand and bail to be followed by the prosecuting agencies and courts. He, however, had clarified that “We’re not trying to affect the existing investigations.”
The petition comes at a time when several leaders of the political parties—which have moved the top court—are facing CBI and Enforcement Directorate probes in corruption and money laundering cases.
The petitioners alleged that many opposition leaders had been arbitrarily arrested by the central probe agencies.
They alleged misuse of central investigating agencies such as Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation in arresting opposition political leaders and other citizens exercising their fundamental right to dissent and disagree with the present Union Government.
