After last year’s order barring the magistrate courts from instituting a CBI inquiry in a case, the Bombay High Court has now ruled that the magistrate cannot order a probe by the state CID as well.
In an order dictated last month, Justice RMS Khandeparkar and Justice Amjad Sayed ruled that as provided under the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), the magistrate has the power to direct an investigation to a police officer who is attached only to a police station that falls within the territorial jurisdiction of the magistrate.
The original case was filed by Ibrahim Adamwall who is currently lodged in the Nashik central prison. He had moved a metropolitan magistrate court in the city alleging his illegal arrest and detention by the police under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
In December 18, 2001, the magistrate had however dismissed his complaint. He then moved the sessions court in a revision application which then directed the magistrate to hand over the case to the state CID. In November 2002, the magistrate then ordered a probe by the CID into the case.
Aggrieved by the order of the magistrate court, the state government filed a petition in the Bombay High Court in 2004 challenging the power of the magistrate to order such an enquiry.
Citing a judgment of the Supreme Court, additional public prosecutor VB Konde-Deshmukh had argued that a magistrate cannot direct an investigation by the police officer of a police station beyond its territorial jurisdiction. He added that this would apply to the CBI and the state CID as well. Adamwal however was not represented in the case.
The court therefore set aside the order of the magistrate ordering a state CID probe into Adamwall’s case. The court also referred the case back to the sessions court to reconsider the revision application filed by Adamwall and dispose it in four months.
