New West Bengal government clears all CBI sanction requests

SInce 2018, the erstwhile Trinamool u.s. Congress (TMC) regime in w Bengal had refused to think of requests from the telephone exchange Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for sanction to prosecute public servants and limited approvals for investigations by the agency to a case-by-case basis.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.