Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to recall the order issued to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for probing the attack on Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy at the Visakhapatnam airport. He regretted that the Centre had entrusted the inquiry to NIA without considering the objections raised by the State government, and pointed out that the NIA Act, 2008 provided for the establishment of NIA in concurrent jurisdictional framework.
In a letter to the PM, Mr. Naidu said the NIA was supposed to take up specific cases under specific Acts having inter-State and international linkages and possible connections with activities like smuggling of drugs and arms and pushing in and circulating fake currency, infiltration from across the borders etc. He said it was bewildering to reconcile with the MHA’s order in the backdrop of Mr. Modi’s comment as the Chief Minister of Gujarat at the conference of the Police Chiefs in January 2009, that: “By setting up the NIA, the Central government now obviously wants to take upon itself the responsibility of fighting terror by sidetracking the States.”
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Besides, the BJP had passed the following resolution at its national executive meeting in Lucknow in June 2011: “The formation of NIA by the Home Minister is contrary to our federal spirit. Without a constitutional amendment, in the subject of law and order, it has taken away the law-making power of the States.” The CM said the attack on Mr. Reddy would not satisfy the Sec. 3A of the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982. Individual incidents of crime, as long as they do not suggest a threat to the safety of civil aviation, could not be perceived as scheduled offences attracting investigation by the NIA, he added.