The Punjab and Haryana High Court has declined to transfer to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) the probe into an FIR lodged by a judicial officer against his wife's alleged paramour.

The Court held that the case, arising from a bitter matrimonial dispute between the petitioner and his wife, both judicial officers in Haryana, does not meet the threshold of a "rare and exceptional" case warranting such a transfer.

Justice Shalini Singh Nagpal held that "bona fide of the investigating agency cannot be doubted for the reason that police custody of the accused was never sought and application for judicial remand was only moved," and that the investigating officer's non-appearance at the hearing of the accused's bail application "is again not a circumstance to doubt fairness of the police."

The petitioner, a judicial officer posted at Mahindergarh, lodged a complaint alleging that his wife, also a judicial officer and her alleged paramour had orchestrated a false complaint against him through his home peon. That complaint, the petitioner said, was investigated and found baseless, resulting in a closure report.

According to the petitioner, undeterred by the closure, his wife's alleged paramour then sponsored a press conference at a hotel in Hisar, paying media houses to publicise the same, already-closed allegations against him through the home peon, in order to malign his reputation as a judicial officer and pressure him in the matrimonial dispute, he having sought amicable dissolution of the marriage and visitation rights with the couple's five-year-old daughter.

The petitioner said he was confronted with an open threat to have him killed, and apprehended danger to himself and his elderly parents. FIR was registered at Police Station Hisar Civil Lines under Sections 356(2), 351(2) and 308(2) of the BNS.

The petitioner sought transfer of the investigation to the CBI, contending that the FIR was registered only after a 37-day delay and without incorporating all his allegations; that despite his furnishing audio recordings, transcripts, CCTV footage and phone location data, the investigating agency neither sought police remand of the accused nor made efforts at recovery, moving only for judicial custody; that the investigating officer did not appear at the hearing of the accused's bail application (which was subsequently allowed); and that no effort was made to trace the home peon, collect CCTV footage, join the journalists as witnesses, seize the accused's laptop, or obtain call detail records and copies of the defamatory posts.

Relying principally on Himanshu Kumar v. State of Chhattisgarh (2023) which collates the Constitution Bench in Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights and the three-judge Bench in K.V. Rajendran, the Court reiterated that transfer of investigation to the CBI is an extraordinary power to be exercised "sparingly, cautiously and in exceptional situations," not as a matter of routine or merely because allegations have been levelled against the local police.

Such transfer is warranted where it is necessary to provide credibility and instil public confidence, where the matter has national or international ramifications, where high officials of State authorities are implicated allowing them to influence the investigation, or where the investigation is prima facie tainted or biased.

In the light of the above, the Court held that the present case, at its root, "stems from a bitter and acrimonious marital discord between petitioner and his wife, both judicial officers in the State of Haryana," with the petitioner himself having made "scandalous allegations" in the FIR against his wife and a third person.

Without expressing any opinion on the merits of the criminal complaint itself, the Court held that the circumstances relied upon, non-seeking of police custody, non-appearance of the investigating officer at a bail hearing, did not establish bias or unfairness in the investigation.

Case Title: X v. State of Haryana and others

Appearances: Mr. R.S. Cheema, Senior Advocate with Mr. A.S. Cheema, Mr. Satish Sharma and Mr. Mahi Pal S. Bisht, Advocates for the petitioner; Mr. Vikas Bhardwaj, AAG, Haryana; Mr. Akashdeep Singh, Special Public Prosecutor with Mr. K.J.S. Bhullar, Advocate for respondent No. 6.