Supreme Court to hear plea of Opposition on ‘selective, targeted’ use of agencies CBI, ED

Though a copy of the petition was not made available, sources said the petitioners include Congress, DMK, RJD, BRS, Trinamool Congress, AAP, NCP, Shiv Sena (UBT), JMM, JD(U), CPI(M), CPI, Samajwadi Party and J&K National Conference.

Citing data, sources said the plea was being filed in the light  of an “alarming rise in the use of coercive criminal processes” against Opposition leaders and other citizens exercising their fundamental right to dissent and disagree with the Union Government.

Agencies like the CBI and ED are being increasingly deployed in a selective and targeted manner with a view to completely crush political dissent and upend the fundamental premises of a representative democracy, they said.

According to sources, in 2004-14, the CBI investigated 72 political leaders of whom 43 (under 60%) were from the Opposition. This has now risen to over 95%, they said. Similarly, while Opposition leaders accounted for 54 per cent of the total ED cases against politicians before 2014, the number has now gone up to 95%, they said.

There is a “clear trend of using ED raids as a tool of harassment, with the action rate on raids, i.e. complaints filed pursuant to raids, reducing from 93% in 2005-2014, to 29% in 2014-2022,” they said, adding that there have been only 23 convictions under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 so far, although the number of cases registered by ED under the law has risen from 209 in 2013-14 to 981 in 2020-21, and 1,180 in 2021-22.

The statistics “demonstrate the shocking and unconstitutional state of affairs”, they said.

The Opposition parties have sought certain prospectively applicable guidelines governing the arrest, remand and bail of persons in offences — that may or may not be punishable with imprisonment of over seven years — not involving serious bodily harm.

For arrest and remand, they said the “triple test” — whether a person is a flight risk, there is reasonable apprehension of tampering of evidence, or of influencing/ intimidation of witnesses — be used by police officers/ ED officials and courts in any cognizable offence except those involving serious bodily violence.

On bail, they said the principle of “bail as rule, jail as exception” should be followed by all courts, especially in cases where non-violent offences are alleged, and bail should be denied only in cases which fail the “triple test”.