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ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Petition No. 59 of 1960. Petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India for enforcement of-Fundamental Rights.

A. S. R. Chari, S. N. Andley, J. B. Dadachanji, Rameshwar Nath and P. L. Vohra, for the Petitioners.

S. M. Sikri, Advocate-General for the State of Punjab, H. S. Doabia, Additional Advocate-General for the State of Punjab, M. S. Punnu, Deputy Advocate-General for the State of Punjab and D. Gupta, for the Respondents.

1660. October 28. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by S. K. DAS J.-This is a writ petition. The three petitioners before us are (1) R. P. Kapur, a member of was serving as a Commissioner in the State of Punjab, (2) Sheila Kapur, his wife, and (3) Kaushalya Devi, his mother-in-law. They have moved this Court under Art. 32 of the Constitution for the enforcement of their rights under Arts. 14 and 21 of the Constitution, which rights they say have been violated by the respondents who are the State of Punjab, Sardar Pratap Singh Kairon, Chief Minister thereof, and certain officials, police, administrative and magisterial who have been conducting, or are connected with, the investigation or inquiry into a number of criminal cases. instituted against the petitioners. We shall refer to some of these officials later in this judgment in relation to the part which they have played or are playing in those criminal cases. Briefly stated the case of the petitioners is that petitioner no. 1 had the misfortune to incur the wrath of the Chief Minister of the State. It is alleged that the Chief Minister was annoyed with petitioner no. 1, because the latter did not show his readiness to give evidence for the prosecution in a case known as the Karnal Murder Case (later referred to as the Grewal case) in which one D. S. Grewal, then Superintendent of Police, Karnal, and some other police officials were, along with others, accused of some serious offences. That case was transferred by this Court to a Special Judge, at Delhi, who commenced the trial sometime in May/June 1959. Petitioner no. 1 was at the time Com- missioner of Ambala, and he alleges that he was told by the Chief Minister that it was proposed to cite the Deputy Commissioner and the Deputy Inspector-General of Police as prosecution witnesses in the said case and it would be in the fitness of things that petitioner no. 1 should also figure as a prosecution witness; to this suggestion petitioner no. 1 gave a somewhat dubious reply to the effect that his appearance as a prosecution witness might or might not help the prosecution. Another reason for the displeasure of the Chief Minister, as alleged in the petition, related to certain orders which petitioner no. 1 had passed as Commissioner, Patiala Division, in a revenue case known as the Sangrur case. We shall presently give more details of that case, but it is enough to state here that the allegation is that in that case petitioner no. 1 passed certain orders, involving the disposal of properties worth about Rs. 9 lacs, which were adverse to one Surinder Kairon, son of the Chief Minister. It is stated that as a result of the displeasure which petitioner no. 1 bad incurred for the two reasons mentioned above, a special procedure was adopted in the investigation of the criminal cases instituted against the petitioners; and some new cases were started through the instrumentality of the C. 1. D. Police with a view to subject the petitioners to harassment and persecution. The substantial allegation, to quote the language of the petition, is that " a special procedure or rather a technique has been devised for circumventing the mandatory provisions of the law (meaning the Code of Criminal Procedure) as regards the petitioners, two of whom are ladies and who are being dragged about unnecessarily because they happen to be related to petitioner no. 1". It is stated that there has been a deliberate departure from the normal and legal procedure in the matter of institution and investigation of criminal cases against the petitioners- a departure said to be the result of " an evil eye and unequal hand " which the petitioners allege constitutes a denial of the right of equal protection of the laws guaranteed to them under Art. 14 of the Constitution. The special procedure or technique of which the petitioners complain is said to consist of, several items, such as (1) entertainment of a criminal complaint personally by the Chief Minister; (2) institution of complaints by the C. 1. D. police; (3) registration of first informations after such complaints ; (4) investigations in advance of the complaints; (5) investigation by specially chosen (hand- picked as learned Counsel for the petitioners has suggested) C.I.D. officials, not necessarily of high rank, who have no power to investigate; (6) the arrangement of a special C.I.D. squad to " unearth something " against the petitioners, etc. In the petition four criminal cases were referred to as illustrative of the special procedure, said to be unwarranted by law, adopted against the petitioners, and in a supplementary petition filed on June 9, 1960, some more cases were referred to. After we had conveyed to learned Counsel for the petitioners that we could not consider the supplementary petition which the respondent had no opportunity of meeting, the supplementary petition was withdrawn. Therefore, we do not propose to say anything about the cases which are referred to in the supplementary petition. The four cases mentioned in the original petition are :-

We may say at once that we are not concerned with the merits of any of the aforesaid cases : that is a question which will fall for consideration if and when the cases are tried in Court. Therefore, nothing said in this judgment shall be construed as affecting the merits of the cases. Two questions have been posed before us in relation to these cases: one is if in the matter of institution and investigation of these cases a special procedure unknown to law has been adopted; and the other is if the petitioners have been singled out for unequal treatment in administering the law relating to the institution and investigation of criminal cases in the State. The two questions are in one sense connected, for if a special procedure unknown to law has been adopted against the petitioners, that by itself will be a denial of the right of the equal protection of the 'laws. Learned Counsel for the petitioners has, however, argued the second question somewhat independently of the first question, and he has submitted that even if the procedure adopted against the petitioners is warranted by law, it is a departure from the normal procedure and has been adopted with " an evil eye and unequal hand " so as to put the petitioners to harassment and persecution. We shall consider both these questions in relation to the procedure adopted in the four cases referred to above.

It is necessary to state that the petition has been contested by the respondents. The Chief Minister has himself made no affidavit in respect of the allegations made against him ; but affidavits in reply have been made by the Chief Secretary and the Home Secretary to the Punjab Government and some of the respondent officials. To these affidavits we shall advert later in somewhat greater detail. We shall also have something to say about the failure of the Chief Minister to make an affidavit. It is enough to state here that the respondents have seriously contested both the allegations made on behalf of the petitioners, namely, (1) that a special procedure unknown to law was adopted against them or (2) that the procedure adopted was motivated by " an evil eye and unequal hand " so as to persecute and harass the petitioners. The respondents have said that the procedure adopted was warranted by law and the employment of the C. 1. D. officials in the investigation of the cases against the petitioners was due to the special nature of the cases. The respondents have also contested the correctness of the allegation that petitioner no. 1 had incurred the displeasure of the Chief Minister on account of the two reasons stated in the petition. In brief, the claim of the respondents is that there has been no violation of the rights of the petitioners guaranteed under Arts. 14 and 21, and there are no grounds for interference by this Court under Art. 32 of the Constitution. It has been stated on behalf of the respondents that in the two cases called Setbi's case and Dhingra's case, the petitioners had moved the High Court without success for quashing the proceedings and in Sethi's case, an appeal to this Court against the order of the High Court also proved unsuccessful. It is also pointed out that a petition made by petitioner no. 1 in the High Court for proceeding by way of contempt of court against the Chief Minister on some of the allegations now raised or allegations similar in nature, was dismissed in limine and the learned Advocate-General of the Punjab has taken us through the order of the High Court in respect of some of the allegations made.

"S. 551. Police officers superior in rank to an officer in charge of a police station may exercise the same powers, throughout the local area to which they are appointed, as may be exercised by such officer within the limits of his station."

The Additional Inspector General of Police to whom Sethi's complaint was sent was, without doubt, a police officer superior in rank to an officer in charge of a police station. Sardar Hardayal Singh, Deputy Superintendent of Police, C.I.D., Amritsar, was also an officer superior in rank to an officer in charge of a police station. Both these officers could, therefore, exercise the powers, throughout the local area to which they were appointed, as might be exercised by an officer in charge of a police station within the limits of his police station. It is not disputed that the jurisdictional area of the Additional Inspector General of Police was the whole of the State. As to the jurisdictional area of the Deputy Superintendent of Police, C.I.D., the contention on behalf of the respondent State is that though he was posted at Amritsar, his jurisdictional area extended over the whole State. The learned Advocate-General for the respondent State has drawn our attention to Police Rule 21.28 in the Punjab Police Rules, 1934, Vol. III, issued by and with the authority of the State Government under ss. 7 and 12 of the Police Act (V of 1861). That rule lays down that the Criminal Investigation Department has no separate jurisdiction and the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Criminal Investi- gation Department, may decide to take over the control of any particular investigation himself or depute one or more of his officers to work directly under the control of the Superintendent of Police of the district. Police Rule 21.32 enumerates some of the cases in which the assistance of the Criminal Investigation Department may be sought. Police Rule 25.14 says that the Criminal Investigation Department is able to obtain expert technical assistance, and in cases where such assistance is required the assistance of the Criminal Investigation Department may be obtained. In the affidavit made by Sardar Hardayal Singh, he has stated that he was entrusted with the investigation of Sethi's case because of its technical nature and also because his sphere of duty as a Gazetted Officer attached to the Criminal Investigation Department was the whole of the State in view of the memorandum no. 9581-H-51/7912 dated October 26, 1951. That memorandum shows that the Deputy Inspector General, C.I.D. and all gazetted officers of the Criminal Investigation Department have jurisdiction extending over the whole of the Punjab State. This is also supported by the affidavit made by Shamshere Singh, Additional Inspector General of Police. Learned Counsel for the petitioners has pointed out that Sethi's case involved no technical questions and the ground stated in the affidavits of Shamshere Singh and Sardar Hardayal Singh is not, therefore, correct. The question before us is not whether the reason for which the investigation was made over to Sardar Hardayal Singh is correct or not. The question before us is, whether in making over the investigation to Sardar Hardayal Singh a special procedure unknown to law was adopted or the law as to the investigation of cases was administered with an evil eye or unequal hand. If the police officer concerned thought that the case should be investigated by the C. 1. D. even though for a reason which does not appeal to us-it cannot be said that the procedure adopted was illegal. We are unable to agree with learned Counsel for the petitioners that any of these two contentions has been made out in the present case. We are satisfied that the Inspector General of Police, C.I.D. had power to deal with Sethi's complaint and had further power to direct investigation of the same by Sardar Hardayal Singh who as a police officer superior in rank to an officer incharge of a police station could exercise powers of an officer in charge of a police station in respect of the same. It cannot, therefore, be said that the procedure adopted was unknown to law. Nor are we satisfied that the procedure adopted was motivated by any evil purpose, though we are not quite impressed by the reason given by Shamshere Singh or Sardar Hardayal Singh that Sethi's case was of a technical nature and, therefore, required the assistance of the C.I.D. Even if it was not of a technical nature, it was open to the Additional Inspector General of Police to make over the investigation to a Deputy Superintendent of Police in view of the status of the petitioners. In paragraph 31 of his affidavit A. N. Kashyap, Home Secretary, has said that the Inspector General of Police on receiving the complaint from Sethi ordered on his own the registration of the case without any order or direction from the Chief Minister. The correctness of this statement has been very seriously commented on. In the absence of any affidavit from the Chief Minister and of the original complaint, we have preferred to proceed in this case on the footing that the Additional Inspector General of Police got the complaint from the Chief Minister and then passed necessary orders thereon. Even on that footing we are unable to hold that there has been any violation of legal procedure or that an unfair discrimination has been made against the petitioners.