India, July 25 -- New Delhi

The Delhi High Court on Friday declined to entertain a petition seeking a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the ongoing protests at Delhi's Jantar Mantar and the violence that accompanied the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP)'s "Chalo Sansad" march to Parliament, observing that the decision on whether a case merits NIA investigation rests exclusively with the Centre.

A bench of chief justice DK Upadhyaya and justice Tejas Karia said the statutory framework under the National Investigation Agency Act lays down a specific procedure for referring cases to NIA, under which the officer-in-charge of a police station forwards a report to the state government, which in turn sends it to the Centre for c...