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16. Mr. Tushar Mehta, learned Additional Solicitor General appearing for the State of Maharashtra on the other hand, submitted that the Court should be loath to entertain the writ petition of this nature when the investigation of a serious crime is in progress as per the statutory provisions and the material gathered during the investigation justifies the arrest of the concerned accused. He submitted that the investigation is being conducted responsibly and impartially and strictly in accordance with the provisions of Cr.P.C. by an officer of the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police under the supervision of Deputy Commissioner of Police and further monitored by Joint Commissioner and finally by the Commissioner of Police who is of the rank of Additional Director General of Police. There is no allegations against the investigating officer of working under dictation or that he had any personal malice against the named accused. Further, there is active involvement and monitoring of senior police officials and pre-existing safeguards have been put in place by the State in order to ensure a fair investigation and in order to maintain independent and impartiality of all sorts, coupled with the fact that the action of the Investigating Agency would be monitored by the jurisdictional Courts at different stages, the question of appointing Special Investigation Team or to allow investigation by independent Investigating Agency under the monitoring of the Court, should be eschewed. He submitted that the Court may look at the documents already gathered during the investigation to satisfy its conscience as to whether the arrest of concerned accused was justified or otherwise. In any case, there is robust mechanism of overseeing the actions of the Investigating Agency by the jurisdictional Courts while considering not only the application for police remand or judicial remand and bail application but also the remedy of discharge and quashing of the prosecution. In other words, the issues raised by the petitioners may be germane for pursuing relief of bail or discharge/quashing, but not relevant to consider prayer for change of investigating agency, that too at the instance of accused themselves. He has handed over a compilation of documents or incriminatory material collected during the investigation allegedly showing the involvement of the concerned accused, for our perusal. He has also handed over the Case Diary and two Registers of documents recovered during the search from the accused persons. He further states that the subject FIR in respect of which action is being taken against the accused was registered on 8th January, 2018 for offences punishable under Section 153-A, 505 (1B), 17, 34 IPC. After the investigation progressed, further offences were added including the offences under Sections 13,16,17,18, 18B, 20,38,39 & 40 of UAPA on 16th May, 2018, on the basis of the material collected during the on-going investigation. Initially, the offence was registered only against 6 accused and as the investigation progressed, as of now there are 22 accused named, including the 5 accused referred to in this petition who were added as accused on 22nd August, 2018 for the reasons stated in the Case Diary, and only thereafter the investigating team proceeded to arrest them on 28th August, 2018. He submits that the Investigating Agency had to proceed against the named accused after the revelation of their involvement with the banned organization, as was noticed from the documents and material recovered during the searches conducted in respect of the premises of co-accused. The named accused (A16 to A20) cannot be heard to question that part of the investigation regarding the manner of search, which the concerned co-accused alone may do at the appropriate stage before the jurisdictional court.

31. As the answer to point Nos. (i) and (ii) are in the negative and against the writ petitioners and named accused, we do not wish to dilate on the circumstances pointed out to us by the accused regarding the manner of their arrest. For, any observation in that regard by this Court may prejudice the said accused including the co-accused who are not before this Court or the prosecution, which must be eschewed. We are of the considered opinion that the investigation of the offence in question is at a nascent stage and, therefore, it is not desirable to elaborate further as the modified reliefs (i) and (ii) as prayed cannot be granted for the reasons noted hereinbefore.

21 With this body of precedent on the subject, the maintainability of a prayer for relief, seeking that the investigation should be either monitored by this Court or should be entrusted to an independent SIT under the directions of this Court cannot be in doubt. Though wide-ranging submissions have been urged before this Court on merits, it is necessary that the court must eschew a detailed or meticulous examination of the material produced by the ASG together with the case diary, particularly when the investigation is in progress. The expression of a finding by this Court would affect the administration of criminal justice or perhaps in a given case, even the rights of the accused. The observations of this Court must, therefore, be confined to assessing whether a case has been made out for the constitution of a SIT and matters having a bearing on that decision.