The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Centre on a plea challenging the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008, as being "unconstitutional" as it vests a central agency with the powers of "police", which is contrary to the federal structure as the subject falls within the legislative domain of states.
A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, while agreeing with senior advocate Siddharth Dave that the court has to examine the legislative competence of Parliament to enact such a law, said the issue was of "vital importance affecting the entire country", as it asked the additional solicitor-general Aishwarya Bhatti of the Centre to file a response within four weeks.
The court passed the directions on a writ petition by one Mohammed Muubarak, an advocate challenging the NIA's decision to invoke offences related to the IPC and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) against him and other Popular Front of India (PFI) activists for the murder of a BJP leader, Sreenivasan, on April 15, 2022, in alleged retaliation to the previous day's murder of PFI member Subair.
According to the petitioner, it was never the intention of the framers of the Constitution to have any policing powers by the Centre over states and "…therefore Parliament lacks legislative competence to enact this legislation which is an incursion into matters contained in List-II (state subject)".