New West Bengal government clears all CBI sanction requests

The government also restored the general consent for prosecution -- revoked by the then TMC regime in 2018 -- last week.

Updated on: Jun 20, 2026, 06:50:07 IST

By Neeraj Chauhan

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Since 2018, the erstwhile Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in West Bengal had refused to entertain requests from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for sanction to prosecute public servants and limited approvals for investigations by the agency to a case-by-case basis.

The general consent was restored by the Suvendu Adhikari-led government on June 8. (PTI)

Now, within a month of assuming office, the new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has cleared all such pending sanction requests, clearing the way for long-delayed trials in high profile cases such as those relating to the allegedly botched recruitment of teachers and municipality workers, people familiar with the matter said.

The government also restored the general consent for prosecution -- revoked by the then TMC regime in 2018 -- last week.

In all, 42 prosecution sanction requests under Section 19 of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act --mandatory for filing a charge sheet and for a court to take cognisance of charges --have been received by the agency in the past few weeks, these people said.

“Some of these cases involve former senior government officials in the West Bengal government. Due to lack of sanction, the courts could not take cognizance. We have now received these sanctions, which will help ensure the trials start,” said an officer, who asked not to be named.

The most high profile cases among these include those related to alleged irregularities and bribery in the recruitment of state government teachers and staff in 2016, which led to the arrest and incarceration of then education minister Partha Chatterjee in 2022, and the cancellation of appointment of roughly 26,000 teachers.

The municipality jobs scandal, where appointment letters were allegedly sold through a recruitment racket by senior politicians, prompted the Calcutta high court to order a probe in 2023. Earlier this month, former TMC minister Sujit Bose was arrested in connection with the allegations.

In addition to the hiatus in prosecution sanctions, CBI had also been hobbled in West Bengal by the then Mamata Banerjee government withdrawing its “general consent” for investigations under section 6 of the Delhi Police Establishment Act (DSPE). The withdrawal meant that the agency could not register new cases or conduct investigations within the state’s jurisdiction without obtaining prior approval, except in cases directed by the courts.

CBI had to send specific case-by-case requests for probing urgent corruption cases. “We never got any response on these requests also,” a second officer said.

The general consent was restored by the Suvendu Adhikari-led government on June 8.

Between November 2018 and April this year, CBI had sent requests to probe 58 bank fraud cases involving ₹2,100 crore, but the former state government sat on those requests. Following the change in government, CBI has so far filed three separate bank fraud cases involving a total ₹191 crore.

To be sure, CBI still investigated cases in West Bengal in this period. The 250 cases CBI filed between November 2018 and April 2026 in the state were those directed by various courts including high courts and the Supreme Court. These include 25 cases in 2018, seven in 2019, 53 in 2020, 77 in 2021, 25 in 2022, 18 in 2023, 16 in 2024, 20 2025 and nine till April this year. Some of these cases pertain to incidents such as the 2021 post-poll violence, which involved multiple FIRs, and recruitment scams.

“Not a single case during this period was filed on the recommendation of the West Bengal government,” said the second officer cited above.

West Bengal was among 12 states, mostly ruled by parties in opposition to the National Democratic Alliance at the Centre, that had withdrawn the general consent for CBI starting 2017, alleging that the Centre was using the agency to target opponents as part of “political vendetta”.

While Mizoram was the first state to withdraw the consent on July 17, 2015, West Bengal (in November 2018), Chhattisgarh (January 2019), Rajasthan (July 2020), Maharashtra (October 2020), Kerala, Jharkhand and Punjab (November 2020), Meghalaya (February 2022), Telangana (October 2022), Tamil Nadu (January 2023) and Karnataka (September 2024) similarly restricted CBI’s ambit.

Mizoram, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and now West Bengal, have since restored CBI’s powers.

In 2025, a parliamentary standing committee on personnel recommended a separate or a new law that will grant CBI the power to investigate cases without needing consent from the state governments.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Neeraj Chauhan
Neeraj Chauhan is a senior journalist with Hindustan Times and an investigative reporter specialising in national security, terrorism, organised crime, narcotics, corruption, financial crime and complex investigations. With over 21 years of experience across Hindustan Times, The Times of India, The Indian Express and The Pioneer, he has built deep expertise in India’s internal security and law-enforcement landscape. Neeraj has extensively covered India’s principal investigative, intelligence and security agencies, including the NIA, CBI, ED, IB, R&AW, MHA and other central security forces. His work has included deeply reported investigations into terrorism, terror financing, cross-border crime, narcotics trafficking, cybercrime, financial fraud and political and corporate corruption. He has reported on some of the most significant terror attacks and security developments in India over the past two decades, including the Delhi serial blasts, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, the 2019 Pulwama terror attack and the recent Pahalgam attack. His reporting has also chronicled the rise and decline of the Indian Mujahideen, the activities and subsequent crackdown on the Popular Front of India (PFI), Islamist extremist networks, the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, insurgencies in the Northeast and Maoist violence. Some of Neeraj’s major breaking stories are in Aryan Khan drug case, Sushant Singh Rajput suicide, interception of a 3,000-kg Afghan heroin consignment worth about ₹21,000 crore at Mundra port, Sri Lanka easter bombings, Aarushi-Hemraj murders in Noida, 2G scam, coal block allocation scam, AgustWestland VVIP chopper deal and major bank frauds and extradition cases involving Mehul Choksi, Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya. His reporting is marked by an ability to cultivate sources, analyse confidential and complex documents, and follow investigations over several years—from the initial breakthrough to chargesheets, trials and international legal proceedings. He specialises in making complicated security and investigative developments accessible while examining their wider implications for governance and public policy. A Chevening South Asia Journalism Programme Fellow at the University of Westminster, Neeraj also spent time at the Financial Times as part of the fellowship. He was also a Robert Bosch Media Ambassadors India-Germany Fellow, studying at the University of Tübingen and working with Der Tagesspiegel in Berlin. He has previously taught investigative journalism and crime reporting as a guest faculty member at the Times School of Journalism. Over more than two decades, Neeraj has established himself as an authoritative voice on India’s national security and investigative landscape, with his reporting closely followed by officials, investigators, lawyers, policymakers and readers seeking insight into some of the country’s most complex and consequential developments.Read More

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