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2019 Supreme(Cal) 473
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT CALCUTTA
ABHIJIT GANGOPADHYAY, J.
Samaresh Mridha - Appellant
Versus
State of West Bengal & Others - Respondent
Writ Petition No. 1594 of 2013
Decided On : 17-05-2019
Jayanta Natryan Chatterjee, Debashis Banerjee, Siresendu Sinha Roy, Paramita Mukherjee, Tirthankar Dey, Nazir Ahmed, Priyanka Ghosh Chowdhury, S. Naskar, Moumita Mondal, Amitesh Banerjee, Ipsita Banerjee, Supratim Dhar, Dhananjay Nayak, Kalyan Kumar Bandyopadhyay, Abhijit Halder, Arka Kumar Nag, Neil Basu, Md Asraf Ali, Ayesha Sultana, Somasish Banerjee, Advocates.
Transfer of investigation to CBI is necessary when the current investigation is found to be perfunctory.
Headnote:
Murder - Investigation - Indian Penal Code, Section 302, Section 25, Section 27, Arms Act - The court found that the investigation conducted by CID was perfunctory and directed the transfer of the investigation to CBI for credibility and to instill confidence in the investigation.
Fact of the Case:
The petitioner's son was murdered and the petitioner alleged that CID did not conduct a proper investigation due to political influence, leading to the filing of a writ application.
Finding of the Court:
The court found that CID's investigation was perfunctory and failed to take necessary steps despite evidence of deceptive responses and suspicious behavior by the suspects.
Issues: The main issue was the adequacy of the investigation conducted by CID and the alleged interference of political influence in the investigation.
Ratio Decidendi: The court held that in cases where the investigation is found to be perfunctory, the transfer of investigation to CBI is necessary for credibility and to instill confidence in the investigation.
Final Decision: The court directed the transfer of the investigation from CID to CBI, and ordered CBI to complete the investigation expeditiously.
JUDGMENT :
1. The petitioner's son was murdered on 12th July, 2011. The First Information Report was lodged on 13th July, 2011 by the uncle of the victim alleging the death as doubtful and unnatural one and request was made for investigation into the matter. Initially the death was considered as a result of motor bike accident of the victim but from the post-mortem report it was established that the death was due to the effect of gun-shot injury, anti mortem in nature.
2. The local Police Station initially started a case under Sections 279 and 304 - A of Indian penal Code and Section 302 of Indian Penal code and Section 25 and Section 27 of Arms Act were added to the case after post-mortem report. The case was registered as Baranagar P.S. case No. 292/11 dated 13.07.11. Subsequently the case was transferred to Criminal Investigation Department, West Bengal (CID, in short, hereafter) on 19.07.2017 for thorough investigation and to trace out the murderer/ murderers.
3. In the writ application the petitioner has alleged that no fruitful investigation was conducted by the CID. The Investigating Officers were transferred several times. On 10th December, 2012 the parents of the deceased sent one representation to the Chief Minister for investigating the matter by CBI as for 15 months after the death of the deceased CID failed to find out or trace the murderer.
4. As the investigation was not really progressing for a long time the petitioner filed the writ application on the ground that due to interference of political influence CID did not conduct the proper investigation in the matter and has not arrested the culprits. The petitioner has alleged that every investigation should progress in a logical manner but in the present case no such progress in any logical manner was found and simply the suspected persons were apparently interrogated and they were not even taken into custody.
5. From the application and the annexures thereto it is found that the parents of the deceased stated that they knew that their son had a love affair with a lady who, the parents came to learn much latter, was a married lady and had a daughter. The name of the lady, as they knew, was Munmun Chowdhury. From a newspaper report after the death of the son of the petitioner the parents came to learn that her actual name was Priyanka Chowdhury, daughter-in-law of one Balaram Chowdhury, a famous person of the city of Kolkata.
6. According to the petitioner and his wife the relationship between their son and the lady touched a low and the relationship was broken. On 12th July, 2011 their son was called to Salt Lake by that lady and while he was returning home from Salt Lake he was murdered. It has been alleged that for last 14 months from taking change of investigation by CID four officers who were looking after the matter had been transferred. Every time the new Officers joined, he started the investigation from the very beginning and the investigation was in the same stage and no development was there. They have got an impression that some politically powerful persons who is in power is interfering in the investigation. They also wrote a letter to the Chief Minister requesting CBI investigation as they got an impression that despite knowing who murdered their son they were not being arrested by CID and they were being shielded.
7. This writ application was heard on different dates from January 2013.
When it appeared before me for hearing on 06th December, 2018, prayer was made on behalf of the private respondents for filing affidavits-in-opposition and I passed an order accordingly with liberty to the petitioner to use affidavits-in-reply thereto.
I was told that the private respondent No. 6. had expired and I directed deletion of her name from the proceeding.
Such affidavits-in-opposition and affidavits-in-reply were subsequently filed.
8. Some paragraphs of the affidavit-in-opposition used by the respondent Nos. 1 & 4 i.e. the State of West Bengal and the Inspector Gener
