The jurisdiction of the Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) regarding lodging an FIR and conducting probe within a particular state is being questioned by various States. However, the power of States to withhold consent to the CBI is not absolute. Explain with special reference to the federal character of India.

Federal design and the CBI’s legal basis

• Entry 2 of the State List puts police with the States; Entry 80 of the Union List allows the Union’s police to extend to a State only with that State’s consent, which is the federal hinge.
• The CBI traces to the DSPE Act, 1946: it is not a fully independent constitutional police of the kind Article 246 would invent from scratch, which is why States can call it a Union agency on their soil.
• Vineet Narain v. Union of India sought insulation of the CBI from executive pull, but it did not repeal the consent requirement or convert the Bureau into a federal police with a free run of the Map.

General consent, specific consent, and FIR lodging

• Section 6 of the DSPE Act requires the State Government’s consent for the CBI to exercise powers in that State; practice grew a ‘general consent’ so every case would not need a fresh letter.
• Withdrawal of general consent, as Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal did in 2018–20 (with other States at times joining the pattern), means the CBI must seek case-specific consent to register a fresh FIR and investigate inside that State.
• States argue that without this gate, a Union ministry could plant a police force on a rival State government — a classic federal grievance in a competitive party system.
• The CBI and the Union argue that corruption in central employees, multi-State crime, and court-ordered probes cannot be held hostage to a State’s political weather.

Why the State’s power is not absolute

• Consent is not needed in Union Territories, where the Union is the local police authority in the relevant sense.
• High Courts and the Supreme Court can order a CBI investigation under Articles 32 and 226; judicial federalism then overrides a withheld political consent because fundamental rights and a fair probe are not a State’s patronage.
• Once a valid investigation has begun, or where the offence is committed in a place already within DSPE jurisdiction, a later political withdrawal of general consent does not automatically kill every pending case; courts have treated abrupt withdrawal as unable to erase jurisdiction already attached.
• Central employees and specified central offences can still draw the CBI where the statutory notifications and the consent matrix so provide; the State cannot rewrite the Union’s power over its own servants by a press release.
• The Supreme Court’s federalism cases, including the NCT Delhi line on collaborative federalism, cut both ways: the Union must not treat States as field offices, and States must not treat national investigating agencies as foreign police when the Constitution has already shared the field.

Federal character: a two-sided limit

• India’s federal character is not dual sovereignty of the U.S. type; it is a Union of States with a strong Centre, a single citizenship, and All-India Services — yet police remains the most sensitive State List entry.
• A healthy federal bargain is therefore: CBI for complex, inter-State, and court-mandated cases; State police for ordinary crime; consent as a default courtesy, not as a shield for State-level impunity.
• Recommendation: a comprehensive CBI statute that clarifies consent, mandatory court-monitored probes in specified classes, and a federal crime list, so Andhra/West Bengal-style standoffs are not the only way to argue jurisdiction.