The Supreme Court has reaffirmed that upon receipt of a closure report from the police, a Magistrate cannot direct the investigating agency to file a charge-sheet against its opinion.

The Court reiterated that the formation of opinion as to whether a case for trial is made out lies exclusively with the Investigating Officer. While the Magistrate retains the discretion to accept the report, reject it and take cognizance, or order further investigation, it cannot direct the police to file a charge sheet.

“…the formation of opinion as to whether or not there is a case to place the accused on trial is exclusively with the officer in charge of the investigation. If a closure report is filed; finding no case made out, it is not open to the Magistrate to direct the police to file a charge sheet", observed the bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice K Vinod Chandran.

The court said that the Magistrate is empowered to take cognisance even on a closure report.

"If the Magistrate agrees with the report that there was no case made out for issuing process to the accused, he might accept the report and close the proceedings. If he came to the conclusion that further investigation was necessary he might make an order to that effect under Section 156(3). If ultimately the Magistrate was of the opinion that the facts set out in the police report constituted an offence he could take cognizance of the offence, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of the police expressed in the report."

Committal order not determinative of whether trial should be joint or separate

The Court also held that committal orders do not determine whether the trial should be single, separate or joint, which remains within the Court's discretion under the CrPC, provided no prejudice is caused to the accused.

"A committal order just gives the Sessions Court cognizance over the trial of the persons committed and is not the basis of the cognizance taken for trial”, the Court said, adding that “if there is no prejudice to the accused, multiple committal orders can be consolidated to try the accused at one trial, provided it is justified under Sections 233 to 239 of the CrPC”.

The Bench observed that “the above discussion makes it crystal clear that the opinion in the final report filed is not decisive of the cognizance and the committal order/s is/are not determinative of whether the trial is single/separate/joint; which is at the exclusive discretion of the Court.”

Background

The case stems from an incident in the year 2000, where the appellant, Brajesh Kumar @ Birjesh Kumar Singh, was accused of dowry death of his wife. The investigation revealed a serious procedural deviation — the first Final Report filed against two accused was on the directions of the Superintendent of Police, who had no authority to do so . The second Final Report found no evidence against the remaining 15 accused.

The bench made the aforesaid observation while hearing a case where the first charge sheet found material against all 17 accused. The second final report found no evidence against the 15 accused. The magistrate's cognizance on a closure report was justified by the Supreme Court

“In the instant case the first charge sheet was filed only against the two accused and investigation was continued against the other 15 accused arrayed in the FIR, on instructions of the S.P, which should have been left to the Court taking cognizance, especially when the charge sheet found a trial enabled against all the accused. On submission of the first charge sheet and if there is felt a need for further investigation, ideally it should have been done with the orders of the Court and the commencement of trial ought to have awaited the completion of such investigation. But the cognizance taken by the Court against the fifteen accused, on the basis of the subsequent final report cannot be faulted since though the report on further investigation found no fresh material, the first report found the offence made out against all the accused, which was also before Court when the closure report was considered.”, the court observed.

Also from the judgment - Supreme Court Acquits Husband In Dowry Death Case, Criticises Mechanical Trial Of 17 In-Laws

Cause Title: Brajesh Kumar @ Birjesh Kumar Singh Versus The State of Bihar

Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 670

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Appearance:

For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Neeraj Shekhar, AOR Mrs. Kshama Sharma, Adv. Mr. Rajesh Maurya, Adv. Mr. Ritwik Prasad, Adv. Mr. Rajat Singh Chandel, Adv. Mr. Ujjwal Ashutosh, Adv. Ms. Avi Sahai, Adv.

For Respondent(s) : Mr. Manish Kumar, AOR Mr. Divyansh Mishra, Adv. Mr. Kumar Saurav, Adv.