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On Monday, the Delhi High Court ruled that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) doesn’t not to seek the State’s consent for conducting investigation under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946 (DSPE Act), except when the case is registered in such State.
The Bench, comprising of Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice Vinod Goel, explained that the provision of the DSPE Act facilitates the CBI in carrying out its investigations. Therefore, it would be counter-intuitive if the task of the CBI is frustrated beyond the point of practicality. If in every such instance the investigation gets stalled due to the absence of sanction of a particular State other than the State where the case has been registered, then the scheme of Sections 5 and Section 6 of the DSPE Act and their purpose would be defeated.
While Section 5 extends the powers and jurisdiction of special police establishment to other areas, Section 6 states that Section 5 shall not be deemed to enable any member of the DSPE to exercise powers and jurisdiction in any area in a State without the consent of the Government of that particular State. The issue before the court related to the need for a prior sanction having to be taken by the CBI from the Chhattisgarh State government in terms of Section 6 of the said Act prior to investigating an offence in the State.
Two corruption cases had been registered against Mr. B. L. Agarwal, the then Health Secretary and present Principal Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Chhattisgarh by the CBI. CBI now alleged that Mr. Agarwal, a 1988 batch IAS officer, had attempted to “settle” the ongoing probe against him.
To this end, it was alleged that the officer approached one Bhagwan Singh, a resident of Noida, who took him to one Syed Burhanuddin—the man claimingto help him settle the case in his favour. According to CBI, Burhanuddin aka OP Singh aka OP Sharma demanded Rs. 1.5 crore as illegal gratification for his services.
The officer’s brother-in-law, Mr. Anand Agarwal, who now approached the court, allegedly played a key role in the perpetuation of the offence along with recovery of a huge amount of cash from his possession. He pointed out that while the case was registered in Delhi, the investigation was carried out in Raipur without the prior sanction from the State of Chhattisgarh.
In April, 2001, Anand challenged a notification issued by the Centre, extending the powers and jurisdiction of the members of the DSPE to Chhattisgarh for investigation of offences specified in the Schedule to the said Notification, which according to the notification, was done with the consent of the Government of Chhattisgarh.
However, it was asserted by Anand that the Government of Chhattisgarh did not grant any such consent and that the consent is only granted on a case to case basis. Therefore, he prayed for a declaration that all actions, investigation and inquiries undertaken by the CBI against him were without jurisdiction and void ab initio. He also sought the quashing of the order passed by the Special Judge CBI Cases, New Delhi taking cognisance of the offence without a valid sanction under Section 6 of the Act.
The State of Chhattisgarh also supported Anand, contending that no consent was given by it under the DSPE Act. Despite this, the CBI asserted that as long as the offence is committed in Delhi, and the case was validly registered by it in Delhi, the consent of other States did not matter.
The bench then opined that merely due to the fact that further acts, pursuant to the criminal conspiracy, were performed by the co-accused in Raipur, there would be no necessity for the CBI to seek prior sanction of the State of Chhattisgarh under Section 6 to continue with the investigation and therefore, dismissed the petition.
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