Accused is not entitled to acquittal - when the complainant is the investigating officer - Supreme Court

Case Title: Mukesh Singh -Vs- State(Narcotics Branch of Delhi) - Supreme Court of India 

The five-judge bench of the Supreme Court has held that when the complaint and the investigating officer are one and the same, the accused is not entitled to acquittal. The Supreme Court has examined, analysed and compared some case laws deciding varying legal points and to substantiate same the relevant provisions of CrPC are as follows:

Section 154 Cr.P.C. provides that every information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence, if given orally to an officer in charge of a police station, shall be reduced to writing by him or under his direction. 

Section 156 Cr.P.C. provides that any officer in charge of a police station may investigate any cognizable offence without the order of a Magistrate. It further provides that no proceeding of a police officer in any such case shall at any stage be called in question on the ground that the case was one which such officer was not empowered under this section to investigate. Therefore, as such, a duty is cast on an officer in charge of a police station to reduce the information in writing relating to commission of a cognizable offence and thereafter to investigate the same. 

Section 157 Cr.P.C. specifically provides that if, from information received or otherwise, an officer in charge of a police station has reason to suspect the commission of an offence which he is empowered under Section 156 to investigate, he shall forthwith send a report of the same to a Magistrate empowered to take cognizance of such offence upon a police report and shall proceed in person to the spot to investigate the facts and circumstances of the case and, if necessary, to take measures for the discovery and arrest of the offender. 

The Supreme Court listed out numerous cases where the trial was vitiated for the reason that the informant and the investigating officer was the same person. In the case of Mohan Lal -Vs- State of Punjab (2018) 17 SCC 627 held that the trial is vitiated because the investigation is conducted by the police officer and who is also the complainant and the accused is entitled to acquittal. But the decisions in these cases have to be treated confined to their own facts and cannot be based solely on the fact that the investigation officer himself is the informant against the accused.

 

"It cannot be said that in the aforesaid decisions, this Court laid down any general proposition of law that in each and every case where the informant is the investigator there is a bias caused to the accused and the entire prosecution case is to be disbelieved and the accused is entitled to acquittal; II. In a case where the informant himself is the investigator, by that itself cannot be said that the investigation is vitiated on the ground of bias or the like factor. The question of bias or prejudice would depend upon the facts and circumstances of each case. Therefore, merely because the informant is the investigator, by that itself the investigation would not suffer the vice of unfairness or bias and therefore on the sole ground that informant is the investigator, the accused is not entitled to acquittal. The matter has to be decided on a case to case basis. A contrary decision of this Court in the case of Mohan Lal v. State of Punjab (2018) 17 SCC 627 and any other decision taking a contrary view that the informant cannot be the investigator and in such a case the accused is entitled to acquittal are not good law and they are specifically overruled."