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A division bench of the Supreme Court today has remarked that while hearing a petition filed under Section 482, Code of Criminal Procedure, the High Court must demonstrate an application of mind and furnish reasons for issuing any interlocutory direction even at the interim stage.

Justice Dr Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and Justice BV Nagarathna further said that such directions were in fact capable of being tested before the Supreme Court in an appropriate case.

These observations were made while hearing a batch of appeals filed against the judgment and order dated 8 January 2019 of a Single Judge of the High Court of Gujarat.

The High Court had quashed an FIR registered against the private respondents under Section 482 CrPC, except for the allegations against the fourth and fifth respondents under Section 385 of the Indian Penal Code 1860, in respect of which the investigation was permitted to continue.

Justice Chandrachud noted that an FIR was registered at the behest of the appellant in April 2016 for offences punishable under Sections 465, 467, 468 and 120B of the IPC against eight persons.

After the FIR, was registered, petitions under Section 482 were instituted before the Gujarat High Court which then permitted the investigation to continue but directed that no final report (under Section 173 of the CrPC) shall be submitted without the permission of the High Court, the top court found.

It was further found that a “draft charge-sheet” was produced before the High Court which nonetheless proceeded to formulate the issue before it as being whether the contents of the FIR revealed that offences of extortion and cheating had been committed by the respondents.

In its final order, the High Court quashed the FIR as well as “other consequential proceedings arising out of the same FIR” in relation to the accused but concluded that an alleged offence of extortion punishable under Section 385 of the IPC had been made out against accused Karanbhai and Maganbhai (the fourth and fifth respondents) and the investigation was permitted to proceed against them for the offence of extortion. No offence as alleged in the FIR and draft charge-sheet was held to have been established against the other accused.

While it was held that it was trite law that the High Court must exercise its inherent powers under Section 482 sparingly and with circumspection, it was noted that the High Court allowed the investigation to continue against the accused but directed that the final report could not be submitted to the Magistrate without its permission and gave no reasoning whatsoever for such a direction.

The Court thus observed,

"Even at the interim stage, the High Court must demonstrate an application of mind and furnish reasons for issuing any interlocutory direction, which is capable of being tested before this Court in an appropriate case. The interim direction amounted to an unnecessary interference in the investigative process envisaged under the CrPC. The High Court transgressed the scope of the powers conferred upon it by restricting the police from submitting the charge-sheet before the Magistrate and by further perusing the contents of the “draft charge-sheet” in the proceedings before it."

Moreover, the allegations in the FIR prima facie indicated that the sixth and seventh respondents entered into champertous agreements with the legal heirs of Shamjibhai and were alleged to be involved in the extortion of money from the appellant. Noting this the bench said,

"...the High Court completely failed to examine the allegation of criminal conspiracy qua the other accused where it has been alleged that they were also privy to such extortion. Thus, in such circumstances, when a specific role was attributed to the accused, the High Court could not have quashed the FIR under Section 482 of the CrPC."

"The judgment of the High Court indicates that while analyzing the case set up before it by the applicants in various quashing petitions, it has proceeded to quash the FIR and the draft charge-sheet in respect of applicants who were not even arraigned as accused in the FIR. The interference by the High Court in the investigation 26 against the eighth and ninth respondents was at a premature stage and was not warranted..", the Court held.

With the view, the top court concluded that the High Court transgressed the limitations on the exercise of its jurisdiction under Section 482 CrPC and that there was a clear abuse of the process. 

Accordingly the impugned judgment and order of the High Court was set aside, and the Criminal Appeals were allowed.

Cause Title: Jitul Jentilal Kotecha v State of Gujarat