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Showing contexts for: police help... in Harbhajankaur And Anr. vs State on 1 July, 1968Matching Fragments
190. "(1) Except as hereinafter provided, any Presidency Magistrate and any Judicial Magistrate specially empowered in that behalf under Section 37 may take cognizance of any offence-
(a) upon receiving a complaint of facts which constitute such offence;
(b) upon a report in writing of such facts made by any police officer;
(c) upon information received from any person other than a police officer; or upon his own knowledge or suspicion that such offence has been committed."
Thus Section 190 (1) (b) does not in terms lay down that the report on the basis of which the Magistrate can take cognizance should be by any particular police officer. It is now well settled that the police report mentioned in the said provision is not limited to a report mentioned in chapter XIV of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The word 'any' in Section 190 (1) (b) is comprehensive enough to include a report lodged b y a police officer even other than the Police Officer who made the investigation. As, however, the filing of the chargesheet is an important step in the investigation of an offence and the investigation of the offence under the S. I. T. Act is to be done by the special Police Officers. In my opinion, therefore, on a plain reading of Section 13 of the S. I. T. Act is with Section 190 (1) (b) of the Criminal Procedure Code, any Police Officer who was entitled to investigate into offence under the S. I. T. Act can make a report about the investigation done by him to a Magistrate and the Magistrate can take cognizance of the offences on the basis of these reports . Ordinarily, the word 'assist' means help. The Police Officers appointed to assist them give the help to special officers in the discharge of their functions efficiently in relation to the offences under the Act . This implies that the legislature intended that the assisting police officers appointed under Clause (ii) of the notification issued by the Government of Bombay can do everything to help the special police officers subject to the provisions of the S. I. T. Act or the Code of Criminal Procedure. There is no provision in the S. I. T. Act which prohibits an assisting officer from filing a charge-sheet or sending a report to the Magistrate about the investigation done by him. There is also nothing in the Code of Criminal Procedure which prevents a Magistrate from taking cognizance of the offence on the basis of such report under j Section 190 (1) (b). Hence , in my opinion in the present case the Inspector of Police, Vigilance Branch who was an assistant to the special police officer under the S. I. T. Act could in law made a report about the investigation of offences made by him and the learned Presidency Magistrate was right in taking cognizance of the offences on the basis of that report. It was not at all necessary under any provision of the S. I. T. Act or under the Criminal Procedure Code that the decision with regard to filing of the charge-sheet or the report had to be taken by the special police officer . Nor was it necessary that before the chargesheet was filed, a direction or order should have been obtained by the Inspector of Police from the special police officer, viz. the Assistant Commissioner of Police, Crime Branch.