TMI Blog1960 (10) TMI 102X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ing in those criminal cases. 2. Briefly stated the case of the petitioners is that petitioner no. 1 had the misfortune to incur the wrath of the Chief Minister of the State. It is alleged that the Chief Minister was annoyed with petitioner no. 1, because the latter did not show his readings to give evidence for the prosecution in a case known as the Karnal Murder Case (later referred to as the Grewal case) in which one D. S. Grewal, then Superintendent of Police, Karnal, and some other police officials were, along with others, accused of some serious offences. That case was transferred by this Court to a Special Judge, at Delhi, who commenced the trial sometime in May/June 1959. Petitioner no. 1 was a the time Commissioner of Ambala, and he alleges that he was told by the Chief Minister that it was proposed to cite the Deputy Commissioner and the Deputy Inspector-General of Police as prosecution witnesses in the said case and it would be in the fitness of things that petitioner no. 1 should also figure as a prosecution witness; to this suggestion petitioner no. 1 gave a somewhat dubious reply to the effect that his appearance as a prosecution witness might or might not help the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... illustrative of the special procedure, said to be unwarranted by law, adopted against the petitioners, and in a supplementary petition filed on June 9, 1960, some more cases were referred to. After we had conveyed to learned Counsel for the petitioners that we could not consider the supplementary petition which the respondent had no opportunity of meeting, the supplementary petition was withdrawn. Therefore, we do not propose to say anything about the cases which are referred to in the supplementary petition. The four cases mentioned in the original petition are :- (1) F.I.R. no. 304 of 1958, given by one M. L. Sethi, referred to hereinafter for brevity as Sethi's case; (2) F.I.R. no. 39 of 1959, instituted on the complaint of one M. L. Dhingra, called hereinafter as Dhingra's case; (3) F.I.R. no. 135 of 1959, instituted on the complaint of the Civil Supply Officer, Karnal, the accused in this case being the State Orphanage Advisory Board of which petitioner no. 1 was Vice-President at the relevant time and Kartar Singh, farm manager of Kaushalya Devi, called the Orphanage case; and (4) F.I.R. no. 26 of 1960, instituted on the complaint of Daryao Singh, D.S.P., ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... have said that the procedure adopted was warranted by law and the employment of the C.I.D. officials in the investigation of the cases against the petitioners was due to the special nature of the cases. The respondents have also contested the correctness of the allegation that petitioner no. 1 had incurred the displeasure of the Chief Minister on account of the two reasons stated in the petition. In brief, the claim of the respondents is that there has been no violation of the rights of the petitioners guaranteed under Arts. 14 and 21, and there are no grounds for interference by this Court under Art. 32 of the Constitution. It has been stated on behalf of the respondents that in the two cases called Sethi's case and Dhingra's case, the petitioners had moved the High Court without success for quashing the proceedings and in Sethi's case, an appeal to this Court against the order of the High Court also proved unsuccessful. It is also pointed out that a petition made by petitioner no. 1 in the High Court for proceeding by way of contempt of court against the Chief Minister on some of the allegations now raised or allegations similar in nature, was dismissed in limine and ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... any further in spite of the fact that the Chief Minister has made no affidavit, a matter to which we shall advert later. 6. As to the Sangrur case, that was also referred to in the petition of July 20, 1959, and the High Court did not accept the allegation of petitioner no. 1. What happened in that case was this. The late Sardar Mukan Singh of Sangrur left two widows, Sardarni Pritam Kuar and Sardarni Pavitar Kaur. Sardarni Pavitar Kaur had three daughters one of whom was married to Surinder Singh Kairon, son of the Chief Minister. The Sangrur estate was in charge of the Court of Wards, that is, the Financial Commissioner, Punjab. On June 19, 1958, the Court of Wards decided to release the estate after partitioning the immovable property between the two widows. At one time a question arose as to whether the immovable properties should be partitioned into five equal shares for the two widows and three daughters or into two shares only for the two widows. Sometime before May 6, 1959, it was decided that the partition would be of two shares only and thereafter a detailed mode of partition was agreed to between the parties. This is clear from the note of petitioner no. 1 dated May ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... sition of the said land under section 17 of the relevant Act; that he had made a fraudulent misrepresentation as regards the scheme of housing with regard to the area in which the land lay. Though the complaint was dated December 10, 1958, it appears to have been made over to the Additional Inspector General of Police on December 23, 1958. The Additional Inspector General of Police then appears to have passed an order to the following effect : Register a case and investigate personally . This was addressed to Sardar Hardayal Singh, D.S.P. Thereupon Sardar Hardayal Singh, Deputy Superintendent of Police, C.I.D., Amritsar, appears to have drawn up a first information report. The original complaint which Sethi filed has not been produced before us. What was produced before us was a carbon copy and on that carbon copy was the order of the Additional Inspector General of Police to which we have already made a reference. The allegation of the petitioners was that the original complaint had been sent to the Chief Minister and the Chief Minister had passed certain orders thereon. On behalf of the petitioners it was suggested that the original was not produced in order to conceal from the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hese contentions as correct. First of all, section 154, Code of Criminal Procedure, does not say that an information of a cognizable offence can only be made to an officer in charge of a police station. That section merely lays down, inter alia, that every information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence, if given orally to an officer in charge of a police station, shall be reduced to writing by him or under his direction, and be read over to the informant; and every such information shall be signed by the person giving it and the substance thereof shall be entered in a book to be kept by the such officer in such form as the State Government may prescribe in that behalf. Section 156 gives power to an officer in charge of police station to investigate without the order of a Magistrate any cognizable case which a Court, having jurisdiction in the local area etc. would have power to inquire into or try; sub-section (2) of section 156 lays down that no proceeding of a police officer in any such case shall at any stage be called in question on the ground that the case was one which such officer was not empowered under this section to investigate. There has been some argume ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... directly under the control of the Superintendent of Police of the district. Police Rule 21.32 enumerates some of the cases in which the assistance of the Criminal Investigation Department may be sought. Police Rule 25.14 says that the Criminal Investigation Department is able to obtain expert technical assistance, and in cases where such assistance is required the assistance of the Criminal Investigation Department may be obtained. In the affidavit made by Sardar Hardayal Singh, he has stated that he was entrusted with the investigation of Sethi's case because of its technical nature and also because his share of duty as a Gazetted Officer attached to the Criminal Investigation Department was the whole of the State in view of the memorandum no. 9581-H-51/7912 dated October 26, 1951. That memorandum shows that the Deputy Inspector General, C.I.D. and all gazetted officers of the Criminal Investigation Department have jurisdiction extending over the whole of the Punjab State. This is also supported by the affidavit made by Shamshere Singh, Additional Inspector General of Police. Learned Counsel for the petitioners has pointed out that Sethi's case involved no technical questi ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to hold that there has been any violation of legal procedure or that an unfair discrimination has been made against the petitioners. 12. Learned Counsel for the petitioners has relied on certain observations made by this Court in H. N. Rishbud and Inder Singh v. The State of Delhi 1955CriLJ526 . The observations occur at page 1160 of the report and are to effect that it is of considerable importance to an accused person that the evidence collected against him during investigation is collected under the responsibility of an authorised and competent investigating officer. These observations were made in case where the question that fell for decision was whether the provisions in section 5(4) and the provisos to section 3 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947 (Act II of 1947) and the corresponding section 5A of the prevention of Corruption (Second Amendment) Act, 1952 (Act LIX of 1952), were mandatory or not. It was held that they were mandatory and an investigation conducted in violation thereof was illegal. It was also held that an illegality committed in the course of an investigation did not affect the competence and jurisdiction of the Court for trial; but if any breach of ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tile Traders Syndicate Ltd. v. State of U.P. AIR1959All337 where it was held that an Inspector of Police in the Criminal Investigation Department was superior in rank to that of an officer in charge of a police station and under section 551, Code of Criminal Procedure. He could exercise the powers of an officer in charge of a police station throughout the State. 13. Turning now to Dhingra's case, the position is this. Admittedly, a complaint dated February 27, 1959, was sent to the Chief Minister with a covering letter in which it was stated that R. P. Kapur had already started tampering with the evidence and I, therefore, request that orders be passed that he Police should take in hand investigation immediately and collect all material evidence . The Chief Minister wrote on this : Inspector General, Police, is sick. Will Addl. Inspector General please take immediate action in taking over papers from Government departments concerned and the papers with Sri Dhingra. Please give a prima facie report. The Additional Inspector General then made the following endorsement : Please take immediate necessary action. Depute one of your officers to contact Sri Dhingra and get the n ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ditional Inspector General or the Criminal Investigation Department. These are matters within his special knowledge, and he has chosen to throw no light on them. Shamshere Singh has said in his affidavit that he dealt with Dhingra's case in exercise of his powers under section 551, Code of Criminal Procedure. Sardar Bir Singh has said in his affidavit that this case was also of a technical nature and so the investigation was entrusted to him. As we have said in Sethi's case this reason does not appear to us to be a convincing reason, but the Police officers concerned may honestly have thought that the case should be investigated by the Criminal Investigation Department. We are not called upon to express any opinion on the merits of Dhingra's case, and all that we say now is that the petitioners have failed to establish either of their two contentions - (1) that the procedure adopted was illegal, or (2) that the petitioners were unfairly discriminated against. 15. We go now to the remaining two cases, the Orphanage Case and the Ayurvedic Fund case. One was instituted on the complaint of the Civil Supply Officer, Karnal, and the other on the statement of Daryao Singh, ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... officers can exercise their powers of investigation under section 551, Code of Criminal Procedure. Daryao Singh, it may be stated, was an Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department at Karnal and became a Deputy Superintendent of Police, C.I.D., in December, 1959. He also could exercise the powers under section 551, Code of Criminal Procedure. 20. For the reasons given above, we have come to the conclusion that the petitioners are not entitled to succeed and the writ petition must be dismissed, in the circumstances of this case there will be no order for costs. 21. Before parting with this case we consider it necessary to make some observations with regard to a matter which has caused us some anxiety and concern. Serious allegations have been made against the Chief Minister in this case. He is a party respondent and had notice of the allegations made. In Sethi's complaint it was alleged that he had passed certain orders on the original complaint, which was sent to the Additional Inspector General of Police with those orders. The original complaint was not made available to us on the ground that it could not be traced. The Additional Inspector General of Police said ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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