Supreme Court rejects Bengal’s plea against NIA probe into Ram Navami violence
Under the NIA Act of 2008, the Centre can direct NIA to probe a scheduled offence for which it does not require a report from the respective state government.
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea filed by the West Bengal government challenging National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into six instances of arson and violence during the Ram Navami procession in March and April this year in West Bengal.
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While upholding the Calcutta court’s April 27 order which paved the way for NIA to take over the probe, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud observed that the state had not challenged a subsequent notification issued by the Centre on May 8 handing over the probe to NIA.
Under the NIA Act of 2008, the Centre can direct NIA to probe a scheduled offence for which it does not require a report from the respective state government.
With the state failing to challenge the May 8 order separately, the bench, also comprising justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said, “In the absence of challenge to the validity of notification (of May 8), we are not inclined to entertain the special leave petition filed by the state government.”
As some of the FIRs filed in West Bengal contained provisions under Explosive Substances Act, which is a scheduled offence under NIA Act, the Court found Centre’s jurisdiction to probe the cases to be not “extraneous”.
The state represented by senior advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Gopal Shankarnaraynan argued that only in two out of the 6 FIRs, the provisions of Explosive Substances Act were attracted due to allegations of use of bombs.
The Court referred to Section 6(5) of the NIA Act which said, “Notwithstanding anything contained in this section, if the Central Government is of the opinion that a scheduled offence has been committed which is required to be investigated under this Act, it may, suo motu, direct the agency (NIA) to investigate the said offence.”
The bench said, “We now have 6 FIRs registered by NIA with the Centre exercising powers under Section 6(5) of the Act. Let us keep aside the high court order. Centre has issued this notification on May 8 to which there is no challenge. Assuming we accept your challenge against the HC order, we will still be labouring in vain.”
The Court had in May asked the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appearing for NIA to find out if all six FIRs related to the same incident or different incidents of violence that took place following the Ram Navami procession.
Mehta said that in two out of 6 FIRs cases were registered under the Explosive Substances Act where there were allegations of crude bombs being thrown at the procession in Howrah and Chandan Nagar. The high court order of April 27 too had noted that the state had not registered offences under the Explosive Substances Act. This was a clear violation of Section 6 of NIA Act which requires officer-in-charge of a police station to record occurrence of any scheduled offence and forward it to the state government, which, in turn, is mandated to forward a report to the Centre.
The NIA was supported by BJP MLA Suvendu Adhikari on whose petition the HC order directed NIA probe. Senior advocate PS Patwalia who appeared for the BJP leader said that if the truth has to come out the NIA must investigate the cases. He pointed out that all six FIRs were registered by the police suo moto and were directed against those who took part in the procession.
The state argued that tear gas shells and smoke grenades used by police were passed off as bombs as the violence resulted in “local abrasions” while no evidence associated with bombs – traces of nitrite, formation of crater, presence of shrapnel – were found at the sites of violence. Shankarnaraynan told the Court that the state police have acted without any “favouritism” as is evident from the accused arrested in each case and the HC order “demoralises” the police force despite the good job done.
The Court remarked, “We can’t be oblivious to the fact that all these incidents took place in close proximity of time from March 30 to April 3, proximate to the conduct of Ram Navami procession. There is a FIR which says bombs were used. Can we then say this is extraneous exercise of power by the Centre. Ultimately, HC has said this is a matter which has to be investigated. The remit of the Court is not to find out if allegations are sufficiently made out but on whether the remit of Centre is totally extraneous in this matter.”
The state even requested for the investigation of NIA to be time-bound as it produced a list from the NIA website showing that out of 502 investigations handled by NIA, investigation is complete in only 11 cases and in only 3 matters, judgment has been pronounced while 12 have resulted in closure reports.
The top court said, “The precise contours of investigation carried out by NIA cannot be anticipated or restricted at this stage.” The order further clarified that any observations made by the high court are to be confined to the question whether NIA had jurisdiction to investigate the cases in question and not on the merits of each case.
After violent clashes broke out in Howrah district during the March 30 Ram Navami procession, clashes led to torching of vehicles and injuries to persons. Over the next three days, violence spread to other districts of North Dinajpur and Hooghly districts. Challenging state’s inaction to conduct a fair probe, West Bengal’s leader of Opposition and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Suvendu Adhikari approached the high court filing a public interest litigation seeking independent probe.
The HC order said, “We are convinced that no useful purpose would be served by directing the state police to register cases against those who used acid bottles and petrol bombs, etc under the Explosive Substances Act as the matter has travelled beyond that stage and it is a fit case to transfer the investigation to the NIA.” The HC also directed the state police to transfer all documents, records and CCTV footage related to the case to NIA.
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