Tamil Nadu withdraws general consent to CBI for probing cases after DMK minister V Senthil Balaji's arrest

The central probe agency will now need the state government's permission to undertake an investigation in the state and against its residents.

The DMK government's move came hours after its minister V Senthil Balaji was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case.

The government had taken strong offence to the Enforcement Directorate's move to search the home and office of the power minister.

Chief Minister MK Stalin had called it "an assault on federalism".4

Earlier in the day, in a statement, Chief Minister MK Stalin had said: "In a needless way they (ED) have breached into the secretariat that has the state's security related confidential files and have staged a drama entering the Minister's office".

"They wanted to show that they would raid even entering the secretariat".

Already nine states including Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Kerala, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, and West Bengal, have withdrawn the general consent which they call a precaution against the misuse of central agencies.

Although the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act 1946 makes prior permission of the state mandatory, in 1989 and 1992 some exceptions were made for a few categories of cases. This has been revoked.

However, the state government's move will not impact investigations by the Enforcement Directorate or the National Investigation Agency.