A Schedule that fixes the case list: the statute behind the National Investigation Agency

Background

India's federal investigating agency for terror and related crime owes its existence to a single statute, the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008. Its preamble says the agency is to investigate and prosecute offences that touch the sovereignty, security and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, and offences under laws passed to carry out international treaties and United Nations resolutions. Section 3 lets the Central Government set up this special agency notwithstanding the Police Act, 1861, which is the law that otherwise keeps policing with the States. The agency is headed by a Director-General appointed by the Central Government, who may be given the powers a Director-General of Police holds over a State force. Its officers carry those powers throughout India, and after an amendment in 2019, outside India as well, subject to treaties and the law of the country concerned. The agency may take up only a Scheduled Offence, meaning an offence under one of the Acts listed in the Schedule to the Act itself. Cases are tried by Special Courts, which since the 2019 amendment are Courts of Session designated as Special Courts, with Public Prosecutors appointed for them. The 2019 amendment also brought in offences committed abroad against Indian citizens or against the interest of India.