The court emphasized the importance of waiting for the report of the Investigating Officer after further investigation before proceeding with the case, highlighting the legal principle that the impugned orders made the further investigation redundant.

JUDGMENT :

Ravindra Maithani, J.

Since common questions of law and facts are involved in these two petitions, they are being decided by this common judgment.

2. Challenge in both the petitions have been made as following:-

(i) Order dated 29.11.2014, passed in Criminal Case No.1884 of 2013, State vs. Sandeep Mittal and others, by the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Vikasnagar, District Dehradun (for short, “the case”). By this order, the private respondents have been discharged of the offence under Sections 420, 406, 506, 120B IPC, and;

(ii) Judgment and Order dated 25.07.2015, passed in Criminal Revision No.2 of 2015, State of Uttarakhand vs. Sandeep Mittal and others, by the court of Sessions Judge Dehradun (for short, “the revision”). By this judgment and order, the order dated 29.11.2014, passed in the case has been confirmed. The informant has filed Criminal Misc. Application No.1110 of 2015, challenging the impugned orders/judgments. The State has also impugned both these orders/judgments in Criminal Misc. Application No.308 of 2016.

3. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.

4. A small question of law is raised in these petitions. After investigation, charge-sheet was submitted in the matter. Once cognizance was taken, the Investigating Officer moved an application for further investigation of the case, which was allowed by the court on 16.08.2007. It appears that another application for investigation was again moved by the Investigating Officer, which was again allowed by an order dated 26.02.2009. Again the Investigating Officer moved an application with the averments that the specimen signatures of the informant as well as accused are required to be taken, in the presence of the court, so as to conduct further investigation. By the order dated 25.03.2009, his application was allowed by the court and both the informant as well as the accused were directed to appear before the court, in order to enable the Investigating Officer to take their specimen signatures. In the meanwhile, the proceeding of the case continued.

5. It also appeared that the private respondents had earlier also approached this Court by filing a petition under Section 482 of the Code, which was registered as Criminal Misc. Application No.195 of 2007, Sandeep Mittal and others vs. State of Uttarakhand and another and Criminal Misc. Application No.492 of 2007, Achal Kumar and others vs. State of Uttarakhand. The Court on 17.08.2012 dismissed the petitions and passed the following order:-

“A First Information Report resulted into investigation. In course of such investigation, FSL Dehradun reported that the signatures on the documents, which were the basis of the alleged offences committed by the persons accused in the First Information Report, are not the signatures of the persons so accused. After this report was received, the Investigating Officer, it is alleged, was replaced by another Investigating Officer. The said Investigating Officer purported to have all those documents rechecked by somebody else and who allegedly reported that the signatures in question appearing on those documents are that of the persons accused. The learned counsel submits that the person, who submitted the second report, had no occasion to look into the original documents, but had occasion to look into the xerox copy of the original documents said to have been supplied by the informant. It is being contended that on the basis of second opinion, a police report has been filed against the accused persons and, on that, cognizance has been taken. Since cognizance has been taken, in the circumstances as above, the present application has been filed under Section 482 of the Code contending that this Court in a proceeding under Section 482 of the Code will decide, whether the first report was right or the second report was right? In addition to that, it had been contended that the whole process is a malafide exercise of power by the police, inasmuch