Both the SIT and Justice Jagadeesan have been directed to instantly hand over papers and proof to the officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The high court docket’s resolution to shift the Karur stampede investigation to the CBI was powered by two “sweeping” elements — the “political undertones” of the case and a notion that top-ranking Tamil Nadu Police officers made feedback in a press convention to the extent that their subordinates weren’t at fault. The Bench of Justices J.Okay. Maheshwari and N.V. Anjaria concluded that the conduct of the State’s senior cops “might create doubt within the minds of the citizenry concerning the impartiality and equity of the investigation”, necessitating its switch to the CBI.
The CBI is a central company ruled by the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946 which traces its origins to the Special Police Establishment (SPE) shaped in 1941 to weed out corruption in war-time procurements. Once coined by the Supreme Court as a “caged parrot” of the Centre, the CBI is taken into account a premier investigative physique which probes a variety of crimes with inter-State and nationwide ramifications.
However, the highest court docket’s reasoning, solely primarily based on petitioners’ pleadings and “sweeping remarks” unaccompanied by prima facie proof to indicate the SIT probe was riddled by bias, are merely not sufficient to shift a case to the CBI with out the specific consent of the State authorities. While it’s well-settled {that a} constitutional court docket can order a CBI probe as judicial assessment is a part of the Basic Structure, the court docket, be it the Supreme Court or a State High Court, should not direct a CBI enquiry in a “routine method”. A judicial order of switch of a probe to the CBI is barely the ‘final resort’.
‘Measure of final resort’
The Supreme Court has a well-developed jurisprudence, advanced via judgments, which imposes important self-restraint on the train of the extraordinary constitutional energy to order a CBI probe beneath Article 32 (for the Supreme Court) or Article 226 (High Court) of the Constitution. The high court docket has held that the train of inherent powers to direct the CBI to analyze have to be exercised “sparingly, cautiously, and solely in distinctive conditions”. The court docket has constantly cautioned {that a} CBI investigation shouldn’t be directed “merely as a result of a celebration casts sure aspersions or harbours a subjective insecurity within the State Police”.
“It goes with out saying that for invoking this energy, the court docket involved have to be happy that the fabric positioned prima facie discloses fee of offences and necessitates a CBI investigation to make sure the basic proper to a good and neutral investigation, or the place the complexity, scale, or nationwide ramification of such allegations calls for experience of central company,” the court docket has defined.
Judicial precedents have underscored that an order directing an investigation to be carried out by CBI must be handled as a “measure of final resort”, justified solely when the constitutional court docket is satisfied that the integrity of the method has been compromised or has causes to imagine that it could get compromised to a level that shakes the conscience of courts or public religion within the justice supply system.
Such circumstances compelling the judicial switch of an investigation to the CBI from the State Police might sometimes come up when the supplies positioned on file earlier than a court docket prima facie level in the direction of systemic failure, the involvement of high-ranking State officers or politically influential individuals, or when the native police’s conduct itself creates an affordable doubt within the minds of the citizenry concerning their skill to conduct a impartial probe.
In the absence of those elements, constitutional courts should keep away from inserting pointless burdens on a specialised company with “issues that don’t fulfill the brink of an distinctive case”.
The purpose for the shift
The 25-page order of the Supreme Court shifting the Karur stampede probe to the CBI reveals that the choice was largely made on the premise of “allegations” raised by the petitioners, who’ve been recognized as kinfolk of victims and public-spirited individuals.
The court docket famous that the tragedy which claimed 41 lives and left over a 100 injured at a rally organised by Vijay, founding father of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), at Velusamypuram in Karur District had “stirred public sentiment and shook the conscience of individuals throughout the nation”. The court docket mentioned that petitioners have made “allegations” that the ruling dispensation, which has “management over the immense equipment of the State”, didn’t discharge its features “correctly”. The Bench, on this context, referred to averment within the petitions that high cops, held a press convention throughout which they “robustly” defended their colleagues, elevating the apprehension that the probe by the SIT comprising Tamil Nadu Police officers wouldn’t be held pretty. It recorded submissions within the petitions that the police had denied permission earlier, in January, to a different political occasion to conduct a rally on the identical place the place the tragedy occurred through the TVK occasion. The court docket voiced this imprecise notion to trace at “political undertones” at play.
These elements led to the court docket to prima facie conclude that there was “a doubt within the minds of most people concerning the independence and impartiality of the investigation” and victims must be spared of being caught within the “political tussle between two sides”.
Previous judgments
A cursory learn of the order reveals that the choice to shift the probe to the CBI was solely primarily based on the allegations levelled by the petitioners. The Supreme Court judgment in Secretary, Minor Irrigation & Rural Engg. Services UP has noticed that the ability of a court docket to shift an investigation to the CBI “might be exercised solely in instances the place there may be enough materials to come back to a prima facie conclusion that there’s a want for such inquiry. It will not be enough to have such materials within the pleadings”.
Secondly, the Supreme Court didn’t specify a single occasion of bias or delay by the Tamil Nadu Police’s SIT. In a Constitution Bench judgment in State of West Bengal versus Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights, the highest court docket had held that the extraordinary energy to switch probes to CBI “can’t and shouldn’t be exercised in a routine method with out analyzing the complexities, nature of offence and typically the tardy progress within the investigations involving excessive officers of the State investigating company itself”.
In an October 16, 2025 order authored by Justice Maheshwari himself within the case of Legislative Council UP versus Sushil Kumar, the choose famous that public order (Entry 1) and the police (Entry 2) was a State topic falling in List II of Schedule VII of the Constitution. “It is a major duty of the investigating company of the State Police to analyze all offences that are dedicated inside its jurisdiction. The investigations might be entrusted to the CBI solely in distinctive circumstances,” Justice Maheshwari had written. In Okay.V. Rajendran versus Superintendent of Police, CBCID, the highest court docket had held {that a} switch of a case to CBI may solely be justified by displaying enough materials to show that the State investigation was dishonest or malafide.
Thirdly, ambiguous inferences about “political undertones”, “political tussles between two sides” and reported feedback made by cops in a press meet can’t be grounds for making incursions right into a State’s energy to analyze crimes inside its personal jurisdiction, particularly when Tamil Nadu had withdrawn its normal consent to CBI investigation in 2023. The Supreme Court has additional constituted a committee headed by former high court docket choose, Justice Ajay Rastogi, to supervise the CBI probe. Such an association doesn’t have any statutory backing.
Besides, the SIT was shaped individually by the Madras High Court within the Karur stampede case. The Justice Jagadeesan Commission of Enquiry was constituted on the very night time of the tragedy. There had been no allegation of particular bias levelled towards the SIT or the Enquiry Commission, warranting a change of the probe company. The Madras High Court had additionally beforehand refused a selected demand for switch to the CBI. In the Shree Shree Ram Janki Asthan Tapovan Mandir judgment, the highest court docket had held that it was not for the judiciary to make sweeping remarks concerning the State authorities and its functionaries and topic them to CBI investigation merely primarily based on allegations introduced earlier than it. The court docket mentioned the judiciary has to grasp that the “functioning within the authorities is by completely different officers and the working of the Executive has in-built checks and balances”.
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