New Delhi, Apr 11 The Supreme Court has reiterated the view that a CBI investigation should not be directed by courts in a routine manner or just because some allegations have been made against the local police, but only in exceptional cases.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and K. Vinod Chandran gave the guideline while hearing a special leave petition filed by an accused against an order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court transferring investigation from the Haryana Police to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) at the instance of the complainant.
The main ground taken by the complainant before the high court was that the police officials were acquainted with the appellant-accused, and those officers may also be involved in the present case.
The complainant, a pharmaceuticals businessman, alleged that the accused-appellant impersonated an Inspector General of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and threatened him to transfer Rs 1.49 crore into his account, apart from coercing him to do business with the accused’s associates and friends.
"What is difficult for us to comprehend is that when the present FIR itself was filed on 22.10.2022 and the investigation itself was in its initial stage, then what was the burning hurry for the complainant to approach the High Court under Section 482 CrPC as early as January 2023 seeking an investigation by CBI instead of local police," the Justice Dhulia-led Bench said.
"The complainant had admitted that he knew the appellant since 2019 as they were doing business together, and even if we assume that the appellant was impersonating himself as an IPS officer, it is difficult to believe that the complainant was not able to find out the truth till October 2022," it added.
The apex court said that the Punjab & Haryana High Court ought to have been slow in interfering with the investigation, as this was not a case which should have been handed over to the CBI at the initial stage itself. "One should also take note that the allegations are not against some high-ranking IPS officer but against a person who was allegedly impersonating himself as an IPS officer! The complainant has raised some allegations that high-ranking police officials of Haryana Police are in connivance with the appellant (accused), but such bald allegations are not sufficient to hand over the case to the CBI, without any kind of substantiation," it added.
The Justice Dhulia-led Bench said that CBI investigation should be directed only in cases where material prima facie discloses something calling for an investigation by the central agency, and it should not be done in a routine manner or on the basis of some vague allegations.
After going through the records of the case, the Supreme Court said that it was of the view that the present case was not the one where the CBI investigation ought to have been directed, as it set aside the impugned order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
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