Delhi District Court
State vs Sunil Goel on 15 December, 2016
Criminal Revision No.265/16
IN THE COURT OF SH. PULASTYA PRAMACHALA
ADDITIONAL SESSIONS JUDGE
SHAHDARA DISTRICT, KARKARDOOMA COURTS, DELHI
Criminal Revision No. : 265/16
Under Section : 420/406/409/427/414/120-B IPC
Police Station : Jagat Puri
CC No. : 9234/16 (FIR No.80/15)
Unique I.D. No. : 458612016
In the matter of :-
STATE
.........REVISIONIST
VERSUS
SUNIL GOEL
S/o. Late Shri S.M. Goel,
R/o. C-19/G-2, Chander Nagar,
Ghaziabad, U.P.
..............RESPONDENT
Date of Institution : 07.12.2016
Date of receiving the case in this court : 08.12.2016
Date of reserving order : 15.12.2016
Date of pronouncement : 15.12.2016
Decision : Dismissed.
ORDER
1. Vide this order, I shall decide present revision petition directed against order dated 16.11.2016, passed by trial court in a case titled as Sunil Goel v. Akhilesh Gupta, bearing CC No.9234/16 (FIR No.80/15, under Section 420/406/409/427/414/120-B IPC), PS Jagat Puri. Vide impugned order, ld. ACMM (Shahdara) has passed adverse remarks against investigation, sought explanation from Commissioner of Police and directed to conduct internal inquiry against IOs besides sending copy of the same to Lt. Governor as well as Secretary (Home) under acknowledgement and also issued notice to ACP and DCP as to why Page 1 of 7 (Pulastya Pramachala) Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Criminal Revision No.265/16 action should not be taken against them. Ld. ACMM also directed Commissioner of Police not to change IO and called for final report to be filed by 16.12.2016.
2. Briefly stated, the relevant facts giving rise to this revision petition (as stated in petition) are that respondent had filed a criminal complaint before the trial court thereby making certain allegations against his sister and brother-in-law as well as other unknown persons. Trial court had passed order on 03.02.2015 for registration of case and had also given certain points for the purpose of investigation. FIR was registered by the police and thereafter, trial court had been asking for reports regarding investigation done in the case. In continuation of such directions given by the trial court order dated 16.11.2016 was passed and being aggrieved of the same State has preferred this revision petition. GROUNDS OF REVISION :-
3. Being aggrieved of the impugned order, State has preferred this revision petition on the following grounds :-
● That the trial court could not have directed the police to file chargesheet but here in this very case, the trial court has directed SHO to file chargesheet. Further in the garb of monitoring, court has started interfering with the investigation which is in exclusive domain of the executive through police. Trial court also directed the DCP (East) to appoint IO of particular rank, which is against the settled law laid down by the Supreme Court.
● That the trial court could not have even adjourned the matter for any date, after passing the order under Section 156 (3) Cr.P.C as it had become functus-officio and further course of law would have commenced only after filing the report under Section 173 Cr.P.C after completion of investigation.Page 2 of 7 (Pulastya Pramachala)
Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Criminal Revision No.265/16 ● That the trial court has exceeded its jurisdiction by pin-pointing the way and the points of investigation to be conducted by the IO. ● That there would be a serious miscarriage of justice and a very wrong unnecessary message will go in the society, if the order of trial court is not set aside.
4. Arguments were invited from ld. Special PP to explain the maintainability of this petition apart from merits of the case because ld. Special PP pressed hard for stay of the operation of the impugned order. Ld. Special PP for the State submitted that the impugned order does not fall into the category of interlocutory order as ld. ACMM acted beyond the jurisdiction conferred upon him and he made observations regarding the investigation done in the case thereby affecting the rights of IO as well as investigating agency. Ld. Special PP for the State relied upon the judgments passed in the case of Parmeshwari Devi v. State and Anr., 1977 AIR 403 SC, Mohit @ Sonu and Anr. v. State of U.P. and Anr. MANU/SC/0633/2013 and B.S. Rana v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi & Anr. Crl. M.C. No.3587/13 decided on 29.05.2014.
FINDINGS :-
5. I have gone through the impugned order and the judgments cited before me. In this order, ld. ACMM observed that FIR was registered on 02.02.2015, but till date no real investigation was done by IO despite assurance and undertaking (given) by the ACP and DCP. Ld. ACMM further observed that matter was nowhere near completion and therefore, he directed to issue notice to worthy Commissioner of Police to file explanation as to why not proper investigation was being done and to conduct internal enquiry of all the IOs, so as to ascertain what was done by them in this case. Ld. ACMM also directed to send copy of this order to hon'ble Lt. Governor as well as ld. Secretary (Home) and sought Page 3 of 7 (Pulastya Pramachala) Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Criminal Revision No.265/16 acknowledgement from them regarding receipt of this order. He further directed worthy Commissioner of Police to file explanation and proper report. He also directed not to change IO observing that changing IO would further waste the time and asked to file final report by 16.12.2016 through Insp. K.S. Rawat. He also directed to issue notice to ACP and DCP to explain why not action should be taken against them for the approach (as referred in the previous part of the order) of investigating agency.
6. In Parmeshwari Devi v. State and Anr., 1977 AIR 403 SC Supreme Court observed that :-
"The Additional Sessions Judge and the High Court went wrong in taking a contrary view. It has been argued that the order of the Magistrate dated August 8, 1974 was an interlocutory order and the power of revision conferred by sub-section (1) of Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974 could not be exercised in relation to it by virtue of sub-section (2). The Code does not define an interlocutory order, but it obviously is an intermediate order, made during the preliminary stages of an enquiry or trial. The purpose of sub-section (2) of Section 397 is to keep such an order outside the purview of the power of revision so that the enquiry or trial may proceed without delay. This is not likely to prejudice the aggrieved party for it can always challenge it in due course if the final order goes against it. But it does not follow that if the order is directed against a person who is not a party to the enquiry or trial and he will have no opportunity to challenge it after a final order is made affecting the parties concerned, he cannot apply for its revision even if it is directed against him and adversely affects his rights."
7. In the case of Mohit (supra) Supreme Court was dealing with an order of rejection of application under Section 319 Cr.P.C by the trial court and scope of powers under Section 397 and 482 Cr.P.C as conferred upon High Court. Supreme Court referred to various judgments dealing with Page 4 of 7 (Pulastya Pramachala) Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Criminal Revision No.265/16 scope of revisional jurisdiction and came to conclusion that petitioner therein should have challenged the impugned order under revisional jurisdiction of High Court rather than invoking Section 482 Cr.P.C. The court referred with approval the scope of revisional jurisdiction and ambit of interlocutory orders as explained by same court in the case of Amar Nath and Ors. v. State of Haryana and Ors. (1977) 4 SCC 137.
8. In the case of Amar Nath (supra) Supreme Court observed that :-
"It seems to us that the term 'interlocutory order' in Section 397(2) of the 1973 Code has been used in a restricted sense and not in any broad or artistic sense. It merely denotes orders of a purely interim or temporary nature which do not decide or touch the important rights or the liabilities of the parties. Any order which substantially affects the right of the accused, or decides certain rights of the parties cannot be said to be an interlocutory order so as to bar a revision to the High Court against that order, because that would be against the very object which formed the basis for insertion of this particular provision in Section 397 of the 1973 Code. Thus, for instance, orders summoning witnesses, adjourning cases, passing orders for bail, calling for reports and such other steps in aid of the pending proceeding, may no doubt amount to interlocutory orders against which no revision would lie under Section 397 (2) of the 1973 Code. But orders which are matters of moment and which affect or adjudicate the rights of the accused or a particular aspect of the trial cannot be said to be interlocutory order so as to be outside the purview of the revisional jurisdiction of the High Court."
9. In the underlined portion of above mentioned observations of the Supreme Court, one can find reference to some of the orders, which were found to be within ambit of interlocutory orders. The crux of the criteria to decide, if an order is interlocutory or not, had been that if an order affects or adjudicates the rights or liabilities of the accused or a third person, then same cannot be stated to be interlocutory order. In the case of Page 5 of 7 (Pulastya Pramachala) Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Criminal Revision No.265/16 Parmeshwari Devi (supra) there was a third person to litigation, whose rights were found to be severely affected and hence, revision was found to be maintainable.
10. In the present case, according to ld. Special PP, IO was the third person whose rights were affected with the observations made by ld. ACMM that he did not find real investigation done in the case. Ld. Special PP also emphasized that ld. ACMM exceeded his powers to send notice to Commissioner of Police, DCP and ACP in order to seek explanation as well as to send copy of order to Lt. Governor and Ld. Secretary (Home Affairs) thereby seeking an acknowledgement from them regarding receipt of the order.
11. On careful scrutiny of the impugned order, I find that ld. ACMM did not decide any particular question even related to the investigation. He simply raised his reservations regarding insufficient investigation done and regarding the delay in filing the final report. Though, ld. Special PP pleaded that he directed to file chargesheet, however the impugned order shows that ld. ACMM had merely asked to file a final report. Giving directions to conduct proper investigation or for expediting the investigation and to file a final report up to a particular date, does not amount to decide any particular right of IO or investigating agency. It is surprising for me that State is being aggrieved of such directions, instead of taking such directions of ld. ACMM in right spirit, so as to ensure fair investigation as well as expeditious investigation. It is also worth observing that ld. ACMM has not given conclusion regarding misconduct of IO, rather he simply referred the matter to Commissioner of Police to make an analysis of the investigation done by IOs so far. Thus, the impugned order was passed with only purpose to call for a report for delayed investigation as well as final report in the case, from the Page 6 of 7 (Pulastya Pramachala) Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Criminal Revision No.265/16 investigating agency. Calling for a report has been termed as interlocutory order by Supreme Court in the case of Amar Nath (supra). Other parts of the order also do not decide any particular right or liability of the State and therefore, there was nothing for the State to become aggrieved of. The approach of State appears to be guided by egoistic concerns as it was still left for the State and particularly the investigating agency to come up with a concrete report of investigation before the trial court and to explain the reasons for delay taken place in concluding the investigation so far. In fact, in pursuance of directions given by High Court of Delhi in CRL.M.C 2621/2012 dated 21.07.2016, ld. Commissioner of Police has issued standing order 444 thereby emphasizing the need for fair and expeditious investigation. Therefore, bringing the matter to notice of ld. Commissioner of Police and seeking a report from him does not prejudice any one. Similarly, simplicitor sending a copy of order to Lt. Governor or ld. Secretary (Home Affairs) does not prejudice anyone. Seeking acknowledgement of receipt of order should not offend anyone because even courtesy demands that a recipient should acknowledge receipt of any such order.
12. In view of my foregoing discussions and observations, I find that the impugned order dated 16.11.2016 is simplicitor an interlocutory order, which cannot be interfered with in revisional jurisdiction. Hence, the revision is found to be without any merit and accordingly it is dismissed.
Announced in the open court (PULASTYA PRAMACHALA) today on 15.12.2016 Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) (This order contains 7 pages) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Page 7 of 7 (Pulastya Pramachala) Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi