Plan for separate federal probe agency dropped

Briefing reporters after the meeting, Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta said the proposal had been discussed with the state governments and received favourable feedbacks from them.

8220;Investigations into crimes like terror, which have inter-state and international ramifications, cannot be handled entirely by one state alone. It is worthwhile that such crimes be immediately transferred to the central agency like CBI,8221; he said.

8220;This committee will provide an in-built mechanism for consultations with state governments for enabling the transfer of such cases to CBI,8221; he said.

The idea of a federal investigative agency has been pending for a long time. The proposal was to let this agency directly take over some crimes like terrorism, money laundering, drug trafficking, etc, which will be defined as federal crimes. It was felt that this would enable a better investigation in cases which have inter-state and international ramifications.

However, a number of states had raised objections arguing that law and order was a state subject and such an agency would encroach on the rights of the state.