NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court, on Wednesday (April 05), quashed a joint plea filed by as many as 14 political parties against alleged misuse of central agencies like the CBI and ED.
The plea filed by opposition parties alleged that the government is using CBI and ED to target opposition leaders.
The plea also sought laying down of guidelines governing arrest, remand, bail in the cases not involving bodily harm.
The apex court said laying down general principles in an abstract situation would be a dangerous proposition as it can only be done in the context of specific cases.
The parties filed the petition a day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was convicted by a Surat court in a defamation case.
The opposition parties had asked for protection against “arbitrary arrests” of political leaders which hampers the democratic process and governance.
According to reports, a division bench of chief justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and justice JB Pardiwala expressed doubts about the validity and feasibility of the petition.
It said that it could have intervened in an individual case but issuing special guidelines for politicians would mean that they enjoy higher immunity than ordinary citizens.
“As citizens, politicians are all amenable to the same law. Political leaders can’t claim higher immunity,” CJI Chandrachud said.
“The problem with this petition is that you are trying to extrapolate statistics into guidelines, where the statistics only apply to politicians. But, we cannot have guidelines exclusively for politicians…Political leaders stand absolutely on the same standing as the citizens of the country. They do not claim a higher identity. How can there be a different set of procedure[s] for them?” Chief Justice Chandrachud added.