On April 5, 2023, the Indian Supreme Court rejected a petition filed by 14 opposition parties accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of abusing its power and using central investigating agencies to harass its political rivals. The petition, filed by senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, alleged that there was a “drastic and exponential increase” in the number of cases registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against opposition leaders since 2014 when PM Modi came to power.
However, the court called the petition too broad and suggested that individual criminal cases or groups of cases should be brought before the court rather than laying down general guidelines without having relation to facts of a case. Singhvi decided to withdraw the petition after the Chief Justice expressed doubts about the validity and feasibility of the petition. Based on the given information, it appears that Mr. Singhvi withdrew his petition because he did not have specific cases or instances of misuse of power by the government to present to the court. He expressed that the court heard his argument with great patience but did not provide any opinion on the merits of his case. The court allowed him to withdraw the petition and granted him the liberty to come back with new facets and new grounds. According to Mr. Singhvi, the building blocks of his case were felt to be too broad at this stage by the court.
