Preliminary Enquiry No Shield To Delay FIR In Corruption Cases: Madras High Court Slams State In Cash For Jobs Scam Involving KN Nehru

While doing so the bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G Arul Murugan criticised the delay on the part of the State in proceeding with the investigation even after the Enforcement Directorate shared materials, which prima facie showed commission of an offence. The court noted that in cases involving such sensitive issues, the State should have acted diligently and registered a case without delay.

“In the cases involving such complications and sensitive issues, the State ought to have acted diligently and should have registered a case without any delay and conducted a detailed investigation. Any delay in registering and investigating the case, may give room to destruction of material evidences which would be detrimental to the case,” the court observed.

The court commented that the manner in which the State had proceeded to conduct a preliminary enquiry, without registering a case, raised serious doubts and concerns. The court commented that the action of the State showed that it was not inclined to register a case under the guise of a preliminary enquiry.

“The manner in which the State is proceeding to conduct a preliminary enquiry, which has now culminated into a detailed enquiry through the vigilance department, raises serious doubts and concern. The fact that though the source information was shared on 27.10.2025, even after 3½ months the same has not even resulted in registration of a case, prima facie shows that the State, under the guise of conducting a preliminary enquiry, is not inclined to register a case,” the court said.

The court highlighted that even after sharing material evidence, the State had not taken any action for almost 3 ½ months, which was against the law laid down by the Supreme Court in Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary. The court also noted that it could not brush aside the allegations that the accused persons involving high ranking officials were being shielded by protracting the proceedings.

“Despite detailed incriminating material evidence having been shared with the State agency, as nothing has been done towards registration of the offence even after 3½ months, which is clearly against the verdict of the Supreme Court in the case of Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India (supra), we cannot brush aside the serious allegation made by the petitioner that the persons allegedly involved are high-ranking personnels and attempts are made to shield and protract the proceedings, instead of conducting fair and impartial investigation,” the court said.

The case relates to the large-scale recruitment conducted in the Municipal Administration and Water Supply (MAWS) Department for 2538 posts of Assistant Engineers, Junior Engineers, Town Planning Officers, etc. It was alleged that candidates were recruited by obtaining illegal gratification ranging from Rs 25 Lakh to Rs 35 Lakh per post.

While ED was conducting searches in the premise of Minister KN Nehru's brother in connection with a bank fraud case, it came across several incriminating materials in respect of the scam and seized several communications, transactions, predeterminated selection lists, call letters, electronic data and digital records disclosing the systematic and organised job racket in the recruitment process.

On October 2, 2025, the ED sent a letter to the Director General of Police sharing the information under Section 66(2) of the PMLA and enclosed voluminous records running to 232 pages. Since no FIR had been registered, the present petitions were filed seeking directions to the DVAC to register FIR and investigate the case.

One of the grounds on which the petition was objected by the Director General of Police was that, as per Section 173 (3) of the BNSS, preliminary enquiry was permitted to ascertain whether there exists a prima facie case for registering the case. It was argued that when the preliminary enquiry by the Vigilance Department was underway, the writ petitions were not maintainable.

Discussing the legal position laid down by the Supreme Court through various judicial pronouncements, the court noted that when the source of information was credible, registration of FIR was a must without delay in the name of preliminary enquiry. The court reiterated that in cases involving corruption, preliminary enquiry was not a sine qua non. The court also noted even as per Section 173(3) of the BNSS, the preliminary enquiry had to be completed within 14 days and could not be allowed to be converted into a mini-trial.

In the present case, the court noted that the State had proceeded to conduct a mini-trial without registering a case even though credible information had been shared by the ED, while performing its statutory duty under the concerned act. Thus, noting that there was a prima facie offence, the court directed the TN DVAC to register a case and conduct detailed investigation and take suitable further action.

Counsel for Petitioners: Mr. Niranjan S Kumar (through Video Conferencing) for Mr. S.Nirmal Kumar, Mr.V.Raghavachari, Senior Counsel for Mr.N.Inbanathan

Counsel for Respondents: Mr. P.S.Raman Advocate General Assisted by Mr.U.Baranidharan Special Government Pleader, Mr.N.Ramesh Special Public Prosecutor for Ed, Mr.Vikram Choudhary Senior Counsel and Mr.N.R.Elango Senior Counsel assisted by Mr.E.Raj Thilak Additional Public Prosecutor

Case Title: K. Athinarayanan v. The State

Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Mad) 80

Case No: WP(MD) No. 34197 of 2025 and W.P. Crl No.74 of 2026