CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Has a Magistrate power to direct the Central Bureau of Investigation to conduct investigation into any offence This question, seemingly ingenuous, has become compounded with divergent verdicts pronounced by different High Courts. When the High Courts of Rajasthan and Delhi answered the question in the affirmative, the High Courts of Gujarat and Karnataka have answered it in the negative. These appeals are filed at the instance of the Central Bureau of Investigation (for short 'C.B.I.') in challenge of the judgments of the High Courts of Rajasthan and Delhi by which the orders passed by certain Magistrates were upheld.

(2.) It is not necessary to narrate the facts in each case. The common feature in all the appeals is, when a complaint was filed before a Magistrate alleging serious offences, he ordered investigation to be conducted by the C.B.I., and on completion of the investigation final report was required to be filed. We may now mention what happened thereafter to one of the cases before us. The C.B.I, challenged the order of the Magistrate before the High Court of Delhi contending that the Magistrate has no jurisdiction to order the C.B.I., to conduct the investigation, at least without obtaining consent of the State Government concerned as required under Sec. 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, ('Delhi Act' for short). The C.B.I., sought support for the said contention from some of the earlier decisions rendered by single Judges of the Delhi High Court. When the matter was placed before a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, a contrary view was taken and the Bench held that the Magistrate has the power to do so. The Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, in reaching the said view, has mainly relied on the observations made by the Court in State of West Bengal & Ors. v. Sampat Lal & Ors., 1985 (1) SCC 317. Learned Judges highlighted the following observation contained in Sampat Lal :

(3.) Learned Judges gave emphasis to the words "when the Court gives a direction to the C.B.I., to conduct an investigation". The Division Bench of the High Court took it for granted that what this Court meant by the word "Court" as used in the said observation in Sampat Lal should be understood as any Court. The Division Bench declined to accept the view of the Karnataka High Court (in one of the decisions) that what the Supreme Court, meant in Sampat Lal's case is the High Court and not any Court.