The author, Muskan Jain, is a 4th year law student at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law (RGNUL)
An enforcement agency alleging constitutional victimhood is not common in constitutional litigation. However, this is exactly what the case of Directorate of Enforcement and Anr. v. State of West Bengal and Ors. addresses. The case arose after officers of the Enforcement Directorate (hereinafter referred to as the “ED”), while conducting searches and investigation in connection with a financial offence, allegedly faced obstruction, violence, and retaliatory criminal proceedings by authorities in West Bengal. The ED and some of its officers subsequently approached the Supreme Court under Article 32, claiming that their fundamental rights had been violated while carrying out official duties..
This petition departs from the conventional structure of constitutional litigation. Citizens normally turn to courts to seek protection when the state uses its power in an inappropriate manner. In this case, however, the authorities themselves are alleging that their constitutional rights have been violated while carrying out their duties.A preliminary tension is heightened by this inversion. Is a body established by a statute of parliament eligible to be a rights-bearing person under Part III of the Constitution? And more specifically can it sustain a petition under Article 32 when the purported infraction is caused by a state authority which would otherwise serve as the venue of redress?
The controversy lies at the intersection of multiple constitutional questions, including whether government instrumentalities can invoke Article 32, the extent to which government officers retain fundamental rights while performing official duties, and whether alternative remedies remain effective when the alleged wrongdoer is itself a state authority. This blog delves into these interconnected issues by examining questions of standing, fundamental rights, remedies, and the broader implications for institutional design and federal governance.
Who can Knock at the Article 32’s Door?
Before addressing the substantive rights, the Courts must first untangle the seemingly straightforward requirement of an “aggrieved person”.Article 32 secures the right to approach the Supreme Court to enforce fundamental rights, but it does not provide an answer to the question of who could be considered the bearer of this right. This can be disputed when the petitioner is not a natural person but a statutory body such as the ED, an arm of the Union executive. The State relies on State Trading Corporation of India v. CTO which distinguishes between juristic persons who could possess the fundamental rights and the instrumentality of government which as a limb of the state cannot invoke the fundamental rights against another state entity.
However, the case does not stop at the institutional level. An even more subtle difference is bred between the agency and the officers. The fact that ED officers remain citizens despite their office is an essential bifurcation. A government official serves in a twofold role: firstly, as a representative of the state and secondly, as a person who possesses rights. The Court’s willingness to consider a situation where only the officers support the petition suggests that separating the agency from its officers could provide a doctrinal basis for allowing limited access to Article 32.
The issue becomes even more complex because of the problem of the “shadow officer”. The inclusion of an officer who was allegedly not present at the incident raises a separate question of standing: must every petitioner prove a specific and personal injury? Courts have traditionally been reluctant to allow nominal petitioners in institutional litigation, and this case may require clearer articulation on whether proof of personal injury is necessary for jurisdiction.
The Fundamental Rights of Public Officers
The key argument made by the State, that officers cannot claim fundamental rights while performing statutory functions is intuitively appealing, but it relies on an overly rigid distinction. The playing out of a statutory obligation and enjoyment of fundamental rights are not two spheres that are mutually exclusive. A hindrance to government action can also result in a constitutionally cognisable injury. For instance, a police officer blocked in a search could suffer endangered liberty under Article 21, a violation of communication that brings to bear Article 19, or even a discriminatory targeting under Article 14. Treating such instances as merely statutory offences would collapse distinct legal harms into a single, inadequate category.
More importantly, the Court seems to be open to considering Articles 14 and 21 claims made by officers even when they are performing their duties. This is an indication of a doctrinal acknowledgment that the identity of the officials of the state does not change at the point of performing the functions of the state. The judiciary has frequently distinguished between action performed in a purely official capacity and that where the individual performing it is directly involved in the same transaction. However, this case stretches that distinction, suggesting that the two can co-exist more often than previously accepted.
By distinguishing between the original offence under investigation and the alleged acts of obstruction during the investigation, the Court recognizes them as two separate legal wrongs. When adopted, a structural issue emerges, that the statute governing the primary investigation, provides no means of dealing with collateral obstructions. Consequently, the dependence on the regular investigative machinery becomes questionable when that very machinery is implicated.
When the Remedy itself is the Problem
The main argument of the State is based on a common principle: Article 32 cannot be used when there are effective alternative remedies. It refers to the common criminal law system prevailing in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the inquiry by the state police as being enough recourse. However, this argument faces a structural challenge. Should the so-called hindrance be traced to the members of the state executive, where even the impartiality of the mechanism of investigation itself is doubted? The circularity of this formulation is that a remedy cannot truly be called efficacious if the complainant has to approach the very same authority against whom the complaint was made.
The offered alternative of invoking Article 131 is not any better. That is made to resolve disputes between governments, not to provide relief to individual officers and to guide criminal investigations. Nor does it allow the type of interim protection, like remaining coercive proceedings that Article 32 can provide. Its construction pattern is therefore not in tandem with the current controversy.
The fear that allowing such petitions would be a Pandora Box is not unwarranted, but perhaps is overdone. The integrity of Article 32 can be maintained without closing off relief in exceptional circumstances by carefully-crafted limiting principles: that the infringement of individual rights must be demonstrable, institutional remedies must have been exhausted, and a clear difference must exist between statutory inhibition and constitutional injury.
The Larger Bench Question and the Real Constitutional Stakes
The proposal to send the Article 32 question to a larger bench is, at least, an invitation to eliminate the purest of the doctrinal problems in the case: whether government instrumentalities are inexcusably barred from invoking fundamental rights? Preexisting precedent of State Trading Corporation, is inclined to exclude such, but it arose within a very different institutional environment. The administrative state today is filled with specialised enforcement and regulatory agencies which do not fit well into either of the two categories of state and citizen. A more extensive guide by a larger bench would thus play a clarificatory role, enabling the Court to draw a line between constitutional exclusion (where an entity, as such, cannot claim to possess fundamental rights) and prudential exclusion (where it should not invoke Article 32 because there are other remedies it can use). The first one is categorical; the second contextual. Fusion of the two is a danger of dogmatism. But there is another side to the issue: would such a reference be effective to resolve the case, or would it merely postpone adjudication in a case that depends as much on facts and the effectiveness of remedies as on abstract legal principles.
Devoid of its procedural overlays, the case finally aims a path to an independent inquiry into suspected interference in one of the key enforcement actions. It brings up a more fundamental constitutional issue: What judicial mechanisms exist to protect Union agencies from obstruction attributable to state power, apart from invoking extraordinary constitutional remedies? The response has wider consequences for the broader federal conflict, as it affects the institutional design of federal enforcement, and the operative/functional independence of investigative agencies. Importantly, the Court has already blocked actions taken against the officers, suggesting an institutional concern about subjecting central officials to state-controlled investigative procedures for acts performed in the course of their duties.
Conclusion
The paradox that brought this case to the scene, an enforcement agency seeking self-constitutional redress, is ultimately a more fundamental structural gap. Although doctrine plainly denies to government instrumentalities the claim to fundamental rights, it does not answer the question, when the same transaction is the occasion of personal constitutional injury to individual officers, who are acting in those instrumentalities. The overlap between institutional interests and individual rights remains insufficiently theorised.
This distinction would be maintained through a coherent resolution. As an institution, the ED should not file an Article 32 petition. However, officers should not be denied constitutional remedies where they can show independent violations of their fundamental rights, as distinct from mere interference of their statutory duties. Similarly, alternative remedies should be looked at in a context-driven manner, especially in cases where the accused offender has used his/her control over the same.
Whatever may be the result, the case highlights a bigger truth: constitutional structures created to accommodate simpler federal relationships are more and more being strained by institutional conflicts of a multi-layered nature.
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