SUJEET SHUKLA Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India has been filed by the petitioner for directing the respondents to hand over the investigation of Gopalganj Town P.S. Case No. 531 of 2016 registered for the offences punishable under Section 414 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 30(a) of the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 to some impartial agency preferably the Central Bureau of Investigation.

(2.) It has been contended by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner was taken to Gopalganj Town Police Station on 17.12.2016, but the FIR was registered on 20.12.2016. In the meantime, the petitioner was kept in police lock-up. The aforesaid illegal action of the police is sufficient to show hostility and highhandedness of the investigating agency in the matter. He contended that in order to arrive at a rightful conclusion, it is necessary that the investigation be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation or any other independent and impartial agency.

(3.) In the instant case, the allegation made in the FIR is that the petitioner was apprehended with huge quantity of liquor kept in a Scorpio vehicle bearing registration no. BR-28L-4129. The FIR goes to suggest that the vehicle in question was intercepted on 20.12.2016 and the FIR was registered on the same day and thereafter the petitioner was remanded to judicial custody on 21.12.2016. It is an admitted fact that the petitioner has got criminal antecedent. A case vide Town P.S. Case No. 82 of 2008 was registered under Sections 20 and 21 of the NDPS Act earlier in which on completion of investigation he has already been charge-sheeted.