ARVIND JAIN Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Division Bench of this court in M.Cr.Case No. 17270/2016 (Bhawana Kale v. State of M.P.) doubted the correctness of earlier order of Division Bench in M.Cr.Case No.9915/2015 (Ravindra Kumar Dubey v. State of Madhya Pradesh) and the matter was referred to the Larger Bench. However, when the matter was placed before the Full Bench, it was held that the question of law has not been formulated for its opinion and the petitioner had moved an application to withdraw the petition, therefore, the Full Bench did not address on merit and the matter was ordered to be placed before the Division Bench. On 08-09-2017, when the matter was placed before the Division Bench, this court formulated the following question of law, which is required to be decided by this Larger Bench:-

(2.) Before we advert to question of law to be answered by this Bench, it is pertinent to mention here that in the case of Ravindra Kumar Dubey v. State of Madhya Pradesh(supra), the Division Bench of this Court observed that in view of the provision of Section 3 of Madhya Pradesh Police Establishment Act, 1947, the local police has no jurisdiction to investigate and file charge-sheet under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act. The said order passed in the case of Ravindra Kumar Dubey(supra) was challenged before the Hon'ble Apex Court by filing a SLP No.6437/2016, which was disposed of by Hon'ble the Apex Court by an order dated 03-05-2017. In paras 3 and 4 of its order, the Hon'ble Apex Court observed as under :

(3.) Now we advert to the question of law, which is to be answered by this Bench. It is apposite to refer certain provisions of the statute. Section 3 of the Madhya Pradesh Special Police Establishment Act, 1947(hereinafter referred to as Act, 1947) provides that the State Government may, by notifications specify the offences or classes of offences, which are to be investigated by (Madhya Pradesh) Special Police Establishment, however, there is no provision in the Act to bar the investigation, vested in the local police. The investigation of the offence under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (hereinafter referred to ac Corruption Act) is governed by Section 17 of the Corruption Act, which provides as under :