SHAMBHU PRASAD Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD learned counsel for the petitioner and the counsel for the State.

(2.) THE petitioner has filed this application for quashing the F.I.R. registered on 31.1.1990 on the basis of the Fardbeyan of the informant Sadhu Yadav.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioner has filed a supplementary affidavit in which a decision of Division Bench has been annexed as Annexure -2. It is submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner that on the alleged date of occurrence the Bihar Trade Articles (Unification of Licences) Order, 1984 was not workable in relation to coal because the State Government could not fix necessary storage limit as required under the law. However, it has been submitted that after 1985 till 1992 no further storage limit was fixed. From 1992 the coal itself has been deleted from Schedule of the Unification Order. In the similar facts a Division Bench of this Court in an unreported order passed in C.W.J.C. No. 6232 of 1994 (Sidheshwar Pandey & another vs. State of Bihar and others) has decided that unless storage limit is fixed the Unification Order will not be workable in relation to coal. It has also been stated by the counsel appearing for the petitioner that the case was instituted in the year 1990 and till date no chargesheet has been submitted. Leaving apart the delay part of this case, the criminal proceeding cannot continue against the petitioner when no offence has been committed under Section 7 of the Essential Commodities Act. It is well settled that the right of police to investigate into a cognizable offence is a statutory right over which the court does not possess any supervisory jurisdiction under the Cr.P.C. Statutory power of the police to investigate is however not unlimited rather it is subject to certain well recognised limits. One of them is, if no cognizable offence is disclosed, and if no offence of any kind is disclosed, the police would not have authority to undertake investigation. Where the police transgress its statutory power of investigation, this Court under Section 482 Cr.P.C. can entertain the investigation to prevent the abuse of the process of the court to secure ends of justice.