Janjivan Bureau / New Delhi : The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a petition filed by 14 political parties against the alleged misuse of the CBI and the ED against political rivals, saying politicians don’t enjoy any special immunity.
After arguing the matter for around 30 minutes, senior advocate AM Singhvi chose to withdraw the petition and accordingly it was “dismissed as withdrawn” by a Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud.
Earlier, 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 – had 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, senior advocate AM 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 petitioners had alleged that many Opposition leaders had been arbitrarily arrested by the Central probe agencies.
They had 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.
Investigating agencies such as CBI and ED were being increasingly deployed in a “selective and targeted” manner to completely crush political dissent and upend the fundamental premises of a representative democracy, they alleged.
