Overview
- The West Bengal government restored general consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday, allowing the CBI to open probes in the state without seeking case-by-case state permission.
- The notification under Section 6 of the DSPE Act explicitly covers alleged offences by Central government employees, central public sector undertaking (CPSU) staff and private persons acting with them.
- The restoration is conditional: any CBI investigation into public servants controlled by the West Bengal government still requires prior written permission from the state.
- CBI officials said the move removes procedural bottlenecks and a backlog of pending permission requests that had delayed corruption and prevention-of-corruption act investigations in West Bengal.
- The decision reverses the Trinamool Congress withdrawal of consent in November 2018, follows a wider pattern of states restoring CBI access, and links to ongoing national debates about whether a new law should let the CBI act without state consent.