The Central Bureau of Investigation has not received consent from five states to investigate bank fraud cases worth Rs 21,074 crore, Union minister Jitendra Singh told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, PTI reported. All these states are all ruled by parties other than the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Between 2019 and February 2022, the investigation agency had made 128 requests to these states to inquire into cases involving bank frauds, the minister said. Of these, the most number of requests – 101 – were made to the Maharashtra government.

“Twelve such requests were pending with Punjab (involving Rs 298.94 crore), eight were pending with Chhattisgarh (Rs 157.26 crore), six with West Bengal (Rs 293.64 crore) and one with Rajasthan (Rs 12.06 crore),” Singh said in response to a question on the matter, according to PTI.

Under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, the Central Bureau of Investigation cannot investigate a crime in the state without the state’s permission. Since 2015, as many as nine states have withdrawn this general consent.

Withdrawing general consent means that the Central Bureau of Investigation would need permission from states to probe on a case-to-case basis. The nine states that have withdrawn the consent are West Bengal, Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Kerala, Jharkhand, Punjab, Mizoram and Meghalaya.

Meghalaya joined the other eight states in withdrawing consent, most recently, on March 4.

Governments in all these states, ruled by non-BJP parties, have alleged that the Central Bureau of Investigation was being misused by the Centre to target the Opposition.