The Court emphasized the wide powers of a Magistrate under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C. to order registration of an FIR, direct proper investigation, and monitor the same. It also highlighted the need for the petitioner to exhaust alternative remedies before seeking the Court's intervention.

JUDGMENT

Jasjit Singh Bedi, J. (Oral). - The prayer in the present petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C. is to issue direction to respondent Nos.2 to 4 to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) or to hand over the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation in case FIR No.220 dated 28.09.2019 registered under Section 420 IPC, 1860 at Police Station Nathana, District Bathinda (Annexure P-4) as it has been alleged that neither the Investigating Agency is conducting the investigation in a fair and impartial manner nor has presented a report under Section 173 Cr.P.C.

An alternate prayer has also been made to hand over the investigation to respondent No.3. There is a further prayer to ensure protection of the life and liberty of the petitioner.

2. The learned State counsel at the very outset submits that a cancellation report has been submitted in the present case and the petitioner can avail his alternative remedies in accordance with law.

3. In response thereto, the counsel for the petitioner reiterates his prayer that the Investigating Agency has not conducted the investigation in a fair manner and therefore, the investigation should be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or in the alternative a Special Investigation Team (SIT) should be constituted.

4. I have heard the learned counsel for the parties.

5. There is no doubt that the Court has inherent powers under Section 482 Cr.P.C. to transfer the investigation from one agency to another, including to the CBI, if the facts so warrant, but the same should be done in some rare and exceptional case, otherwise the CBI would be flooded with a large number of cases making it impossible to properly investigate each of them.

6. The Hon'ble Supreme Court has dealt with the issues of the power to order the registration of an FIR, transfer investigations, to supervise the same and other allied issues in a number of judgments. Some of them are enumerated hereinbelow:-

In 'Sakiri Vasu versus State of U.P. and others, 2008 (1) RCR (Criminal) 392', the Hon'ble Supreme Court has held as under:-

'10. It has been held by this Court in CBI & another vs. Rajesh Gandhi and another 1997 Cr.L.J 63 (vide para 8) that no one can insist that an offence be investigated by a particular agency. We fully agree with the view in the aforesaid decision. An aggrieved person can only claim that the offence he alleges be investigated properly, but he has no right to claim that it be investigated by any particular agency of his choice.

11. In this connection we would like to state that if a person has a grievance that the police station is not registering his FIR under Section 154 Cr.P.C., then he can approach the Superintendent of Police under Section 154(3) Cr.P.C. by an application in writing.

Even if that does not yield any satisfactory result in the sense that either the FIR is still not registered, or that even after registering it no proper investigation is held, it is open to the aggrieved person to file an application under Section 156 (3) Cr.P.C . before the learned Magistrate concerned. If such an application under Section 156 (3) is filed before the Magistrate, the Magistrate can direct the FIR to be registered and also can direct a proper investigation to be made, in a case where, according to the aggrieved person, no proper investigation was made. The Magistrate can also under the same provision monitor the investigation to ensure a proper investigation.

12. Thus in Mohd. Yousuf vs. Smt. Afaq Jahan & Anr. JT 2006(1) SC 10, this Court observed:

The clear position therefore is that any judicial Magistrate, before taking cognizance of the offence, can order investigation under Section 156(3) of the Code. If he does so, he is not to examine the complainant on oath because he was not taking cognizance of any offence therein. For the purpose of enabling the police to start investigation it is open to the Magistrate to direct the police to register an FIR. There is nothing illegal in doing so.