These petitions are heard and disposed of together as they give rise to a common question of law.

2. The facts are said to be as follows.

The Government of Karnataka, through the Women and Child Welfare Department is said to have formed an Integrated Child Development Scheme, for supply of nutritious food to young children, teenaged girls and pregnant women. The Central Government was also said to be funding the Scheme. It transpires there was an agreement with a private entity, M/s Christie Fried Grams Industries, who was the exclusive supplier of the food. It was claimed in an anonymous complaint that the Director of the Department, one Shamala Iqbal, the Joint Director, one Usha Patwari, who is the petitioner in Crl.P. 816/2014 and the Assistant Director, one Muniraju, the petitioner in the petition in WP 9733/2016 were all being paid huge amounts of bribe to enable the above said supplier to palm off sub-standard goods. It is on information thus received that an FIR in Crime no.20/2012 is said to have been registered on 8-3-2012 by the respondent -Police for offences punishable under Sections 12, 13(1)(d) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (Hereinafter referred to as the ‘PC Act’, for brevity). It is said that in the course of investigation and search conducted on 9-3-2012, it was claimed that incriminating material was said to have been found, that disclosed that both the above said petitioners had amassed wealth disproportionate to their known sources of income.

The matter was said to have been investigated without a First Information Report being lodged in so far as Crime no.20/2012 was concerned. But after the alleged investigation, the Inspector of Police is said to have submitted a report, implicating Usha Patwari. The search conducted at the house of the petitioner on 9-3-2012, was pursuant to the registration of Crime no.20/2012. Thereafter, there was no other investigation conducted by the respondent -police. However, the police are said to have registered a case for an offence under Section 13(1)(e), as on 3-4-2012 in Crime no.28/2012.

Similarly, in the case of Muniraju, the petitioner in WP 9733/2016, on the basis of a source report said to have been prepared only on the information gathered at the search conducted on 9-3-2012, a case is said to have been registered in Crime no. 35/2012, for offences punishable under Section 13(1)(e) and 13(2) of the PC Act.

It is this action on the part of the respondent -police that is sought to be questioned as being contrary to the law laid down in L. Shankar Murthy v. Karnataka Lok Ayuktha Police, 2012 (5) Kar.LJ 545 and Girish Chandra v. Karnataka Lok Ayuktha Police, 2013 (5) Kar.LJ.470. It is asserted that it is the settled legal position that unless a First Information Report (FIR) is registered, the police cannot investigate a case. A Constitution Bench of the Apex Court in Lalita Kumari v. State of UP, (2013) 8 SCC 1, has settled the legal position in this regard.

It is further contended that entrustment of investigation under Section 13(1)(e) shall be to an officer designated under Section 17 of the PC Act and not to any other. In the present case on hand, there has been a violation in that regard as well, in a police inspector having conducted the search and investigation, instead of an officer not below the rank of a Deputy Superintendent of Police.

It is contended that in so far as Crime no.20/2012 is concerned, the same was subject matter of challenge by the petitioner and other accused therein, which was the subject matter of the final order dated 30-10-2015 in the petitions in WP 6225-26/2014 and connected cases, whereby the said proceedings were quashed. Yet another case in Crime no.25/2012, which was quashed along with the Crime no.20/2012, was on identical facts against one Shamala Iqbal as the first petitioner stands on the same footing in Crime no.28/2012, it is claimed that the same ought to be quashed on a parity of reasoning.

It is emphas