CBI is not an authority

In Sh Navendra Kumar Vs UOI, Gauhati High Court on 08.10.13 declared constitution of CBI as ultra virus and also explains what is an obiter dictum as under,

“So far as constitution of police force is concerned, Union and the State, both have legislative competence to enact laws on ‘ police’. However, so far as law, enacted by Parliament, is concerned, it can operate only in the ‘Union territories’ and not in any ‘ State’, because ‘police’ is a subject falling under State List”

“The State, in D Bhuvan Mohan Patnaik Vs State of AP AIR 1974 SC 2092 which had acted on executive instructions in installing live high-voltage wire on the walls of the jail, could not justify installation of this mechanism on the basis of a ‘law’ or ‘ procedure established by law’ inasmuch as the executive instructions, which had been acted upon, were held by the Supreme Court to be not a ‘law’ within the meaning of Article 13(3)(a) nor could these instructions, according to the Supreme Court, fall within the expression, “procedure established by law’, as envisaged by Article 21.”

“The elaborate discussions on the concepts of ratio decidendi and obiter dicta, made in the cases pointed above, can be summarized as follows:

(a) A decision is an authority for what it actually decides. What is the essence, in a decision, is its ratio and not every observation found therein nor what logically flows from the various observations made in the judgment. The enunciation of the reason or the principles on which a question before a Court has been decided, is alone binding as a precedent.

(b) In a given case, two questions may arise before a Court for its determination. The Court may determine both, although only one of them may be necessary for the ultimate decision of the case. The question, which was necessary for the determination of the case would be the 'ratio decidendi' . However, the opinion of the tribunal on the question, which was not necessary to decide the case would be only an 'obiter dictum'.

(c) ‘Obiter dictum’ is made as argument or illustration, as pertinent to other cases as to the one on hand, and which may enlighten or convince, but which in no sense are a part of the judgment in[…]”