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10. As regards requirement of sanction, counsel submitted that there is intrinsic evidence to show that the police are guilty of cold blooded murders. By no stretch of imagination, it can be said that when deceased Munna Singh was shot dead, the police were discharging their public duty. Therefore, there is no question of obtaining sanction to prosecute the police personnel involved in this case. Counsel submitted that when the question of sanction is raised, it must be studied with reference to the complaint and not with reference to the documents produced by the accused to set up a plea of self defence. Counsel submitted that the plea of self defence can only be raised in the trial court. Counsel submitted that whether there is false encounter or not, must be considered only on the basis of the complaint and testimonies recorded before the charge is framed. No material produced by the accused should be taken into account when there is unimpeachable evidence to show that the police are guilty of false encounter. In such case, sanction is not required. In support of his submissions, counsel relied on the judgment of the Federal Court in Dr. Hori Ram Singh v. Empower[1] judgments of this court in Matajog Dobey v. H.C. Bhari,[2] Pukhraj v. State of Rajasthan & Anr.,[3] Nagraj v. State of Mysore[4], Raj Kishor Roy v. Kamleshwar Pandey & Anr,[5] K. Satwant Singh v. The State of Punjab[6] and State of Orissa through Kumar Raghvendra Singh & Ors. v. Ganesh Chandra Jew[7]. Counsel also relied on Zandu Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. & Ors. v. Mohd. Sharaful Haque & Anr.[8] on the question of nature of powers of the High Court under Section 482 of the Code.

28. Mr. Gonsalves contended that nails of the deceased were blackened. This is not borne out by the postmortem report or the inquest conducted by the Magistrate. It is true that the postmortem was not videographed. In this case, the Magistrate conducted the inquest. The CID has fully investigated and submitted its report stating that it was a genuine encounter. NHRC is also satisfied with the postmortem. Therefore, it is not possible to infer that post-mortem was not videographed because the police wanted to suppress something. We would like to make it clear that we have independently examined the relevant documents, like FIRs, postmortem notes, inquest report, seizure memo and extracts of FSL report and we are of the view that this is not a case of false encounter. We reject the case of the complainant that the police are guilty of killing deceased Munna Singh in cold blood in fake encounter.