The main legal point established in the judgment is the distinction between transfer of investigation and transfer of a proceeding at the stage of investigation, and the exercise of inherent powers under Section 482 of the Code to prevent abuse of the process of any Court or secure the ends of justice.

JUDGMENT :

Jay Sengupta, J.:

1. This is an application seeking transfer of Special Case No. 31/2021 under Sections 9, 10, 11 and 12 of the POCSO Act from the learned Special Court under the POCSO Act, Mayabunder, North and Middle Andamans to the learned Special Court, POCSO Act at Port Blair under the same Sessions Division. By an order dated 20.01.2022 the learned Sessions Judge Andaman & Nicober Islands at Port Blair was pleased to reject the petitioner’s prayer for transfer of the case under Section 408 of the Code.

2. The contentions of the petitioner, as presented before this Court by his learned counsel Mr. D.C. Kabir, are as follows. The petitioner was an Additional Public Prosecutor and a Special Public Prosecutor for a case under the POCSO Act in which the present de facto complainant was the victim. In that case both the accused and the victim were juveniles. First, there was a dispute between the Presiding Officer of the learned Special Court at Mayabunder and the present petitioner regarding deployment of security personnel in the Court compound. On a date fixed for evidence in the said case, the petitioner asked the victim to come to his chamber to refresh the facts. She came. But, she raised objections regarding some of the questions asked by the petitioner. She was also agitated with the fact that she had to wait for the Juvenile Court to sit. The Court actually did not sit on that date. This led to further altercations with the petitioner. Afterwards, the victim went to the learned Presiding Officer of the Special Court and gave a complaint to him alleging that the petitioner had committed offences under the POCSO Act when she had been to his chamber. Surprisingly, as would be evident from a copy of the FIR, there is no indication whether this was sent to the police station by the learned Judicial Officer himself. From a copy of the purported order dated 30.12.2021 supplied by the Administration, a copy of which was not supplied to the petitioner although a certified copy of the entire order sheet had been applied for, it appeared that the learned Special Court claimed to have passed a direction under Section 156 (3) of the Code for registration of the instant FIR. However, there was no case number for filing of such application. In fact, the learned Special Court was also not sitting in Court while taking up such matter. Nor did the letter of complaint which was treated as an application under Section 156 (3) of the Code contained the relevant averments as required to be made in terms of Section 154 (3) and 156 (1) of the Code, as per the ratio of Hon’ble Apex Court given in the case of Priyanka Shrivastava, (2015) 6 SCC 287. Thus, it was only an attempt made subsequently by the learned Presiding Officer to make up for the illegality committed by him in directly referring the matter to the Police Station. In fact, the learned Judicial Officer recorded that the victim had lodged the complaint “confidentially” before this Special Court. It was not proper on the part of the learned Judge to have dealt with the personal letter of the de facto complainant without any endorsement or receipt or official entry of any short for forwarding the same to the police station in order to register an FIR. This only amounts to an overreach by a judicial authority. After all these, the learned Judge could not have gone on to take up the same matter himself. When the petitioner wanted to move an application before the learned Sessions Judge, the prosecution objected and the matter was sent back to the learned Special Court at Mayabander. By relying on a purported judgment of the Hon’ble Delhi High Court without citing any reference, the learned Judge recorded that the victim needed to be heard in an application for anticipatory bail involving the POCSO Act. On 07.01.2022 the victim appeared, the matter was heard and the petitioner’s application for anticipatory bail was turned down. These, among other things, gave rise to a serious