No Person Can Demand Investigating Officer Of Their Choice Or From A Specific Caste Or Community: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court has observed that no person can seek a direction that the Investigating Officer in a particular case must be of his own choice or that he must belong to a specific caste or community.

Stating that such demands are impermissible under law, a bench of Justice Abdul Shahid stayed the criminal proceedings in an SC-ST Act case in which the complainant sought a fresh probe, specifically by a Scheduled Caste police officer.

Briefly put, the appellants filed an NCR in October 2013 against the opposite party, Naresh Kumar/complainant and others for the alleged offences of assault and criminal intimidation. A chargesheet was subsequently filed in that matter.

Thereafter, allegedly as a counterblast, the complainant (Naresh Kumar) moved an application under 156 (3) CrPC against the appellants. An FIR was later registered (on the CJM Court's order) against the appellants under various provisions of the IPC and the SC-ST Act.

However, after a detailed investigation, since no offence was found, a final report was submitted in January 2014. Therefore, the complainant filed a protest plea claiming that the police officials conducted a biased investigation to save the accused-appellants.

In his protest plea, apart from seeking a probe against the concerned police officials, the complainant prayed for cancellation of the final report and for a direction to conduct a fresh investigation by a police official belonging to the SC community.

The Special SC/ST Act Court registered this protest petition as a complaint, recorded the statements, and thereafter passed a summoning order in 2017 against the appellants. Thereafter, the appellants' discharge petition was rejected and hence they moved the HC with the present petition.

Taking into account the facts of the case, Justice Shahid prima facie noted that Section 452 IPC and Section 3(1)(x) of the SC/ST Act do not appear to be attracted simultaneously in the present case.

The Court also found that the summoning order, based on the protest petition and the contents of the original complaint, was entirely different. Therefore, the Court stayed the proceedings of the case against the appellants.

Regarding the prayer for an IO from a specific caste, the Court termed this demand to be "prima facie contrary to law" and an "abuse of the process of law". It remarked thus:

"Opposite party no. 2 (complainant) has not approached the court with clean hands and seeks to have the entire legal process conducted according to his own preferences, which is impermissible in law".

The matter has now been listed for a fresh hearing on April 30.