IMPORTANT POINT
On accepting the final report, the court does not become functus officio. It can proceed treating the police report or the initial complaint as the basis for further action/enquiry in the allegations leveled therein.

Judgment

Ranjan Gogoi, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. Whether a Magistrate after accepting a negative final report submitted by the Police can take action on the basis of the protest petition filed by the complainant/first informant? The above question having been answered in the affirmative by the Allahabad High Court, this appeal has been filed by the accused.

3. The bare facts that would be required to be noticed are as follows :

Respondent No.2 herein lodged an FIR which was registered as Crime Case No.480 of 2000 under Section 364 of the Indian Penal Code at the Police Station Gosai Ganj District Sultanpur against the appellants and two other accused persons. On completion of investigation, the investigating officer submitted a final report to the court that no case is made out against the appellants and the other two accused and that they have been falsely implicated in the case. By order dated 26th November, 2002, the learned Magistrate accepted the final report but simultaneously directed that the case be proceeded with as a complaint case. The statements under Sections 200 and 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Cr.P.C.) were recorded and the accused were summoned by the learned trial court to face the trial. Against the aforesaid orders passed by the learned Magistrate, the present appellants moved the High Court of Allahabad raising the question noticed earlier. The High Court having answered the said question in the affirmative, this appeal has been filed.

4. We have heard learned counsel for the parties.

5. In Bhuneshwar Prasad Sinha vs. State of Bihar [1981 CriLJ 795], the very same question came up for consideration before the Patna High Court. The High Court answered the question in the negative by holding –

“In that case it has been held by the Supreme Court that if the Magistrate agrees with the opinion of the police he may accept the final report and close the proceedings. It will be deemed that the proceedings against the accused persons in respect of the facts constituting the offence have been closed by the Magistrate in a Judicial-Proceeding. If it is so, such proceeding can only beset aside in revision by the higher authority unless and until the order is not set aside, the Magistrate is not entitled to take cognizance on the basis of the complaint petition or protest petition in respect of the same facts constituting the offence as mentioned in the final form. In the present case, it is clear from the order dated 6th Dec. 1978, that the final form was accepted by the court earlier. If it is so, then the Magistrate was not justified in taking cognizance in respect of the same facts constituting the offence which were mentioned in the final form. In order to check the litigation, it is necessary that when a judicial order is passed by accepting the final form such order should not be set aside by the Magistrate by taking cognizance on the basis of the complaint petition.”

6. In the appeal filed against the aforesaid order of the Patna High Court, this Court, however, held that –

“The High Court was clearly in error in thinking that the Magistrate could not take cognizance of a case upon complaint because he had earlier refused to take cognizance of the case on a police report. The order of the High Court is set aside. The matter is remitted to the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Patna for disposal according to law. If the accused have any further objections to raise, they may do so before the Chief Judicial Magistrate.”

The decision of this Court is reported in Gopal Vijay Verma vs. Bhuneshwar Prasad Sinha & Ors., 1982 (3) SCC 510.

7. If we are to go back to trace the genesis of the views expressed by this Court in Gopal Vijay Verma (supra), notice must be had of the decision of this Court in H.S. Bains vs. State (Union Territory of Chandigarh), [1980 CriLJ 1308] wherein it was held that after receipt of the police report under Section 173, the Magistrate has three options –

“(1) he may decide that there is no sufficient grou