The main legal point established in the judgment is that prior permission from the Magistrate is not mandatory for further investigation by the Investigating Officer under Section 173(8) of CrPC.

JUDGMENT :

Sharad Kumar Sharma, J.

Primarily, in the instant C482 Application. The challenge has been given is to the proceedings of Criminal Case No. 2313 of 2023, State Vs. Gurdeep Singh and others, as the same is pending consideration before the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Dehradun.

2. Initially, a Chargesheet No. 2 dated 26.02.2021 was submitted for the offences under Sections 147, 323, 504 & 506 of IPC. It was later on because of the submission of the supplementary Chargesheet that offence under Section 149 of IPC was introduced by the Investigating Officer. As a result thereof, the summoning order has been issued by the Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Dehradun, in Criminal Case No. 2313 of 2023, State Vs. Gurdeep Singh and others, trying the present applicants for the offences under Sections 147, 149, 323, 504 & 506 of IPC.

3. There has been a whole set of litigation pertaining to the rival members of the society with regard to the society as it has been registered in the name of “Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha”, but their respective claims arising out of the election, since not being the subject matter in the instant C482 Application, this Court is not dealing with the impact of earlier litigations by way of Writ Petition and the Special Appeal, preferred inter se between the parties.

4. The learned counsel for the applicants had attempted to draw a fine distinction from the perspective that after the submission of the principal Chargesheet dated 26.02.2021, the Investigating Officer, on his own wisdom, could not have conducted further investigation and later on could have submitted the supplementary Chargesheet on 19.07.2022, thereby introducing an offence triable under Section 149 of IPC, and on that pretext, it is contended by the learned counsel for the applicants that the entire proceedings of the Criminal Case No. 2313 of 2023, State Vs. Gurdeep Singh and others, would stand vitiated.

5. Yesterday, when the matter was taken up, the learned counsel for the applicants had argued, that in the light of the provisions contained under sub-Section (3) of Section 173 of CrPC, which according to him was the exclusive provision for the purposes of conducting a further investigation by the Investigating Officer, “a prior permission from the Magistrate is required”. But, on the simpliciter reading of the aforesaid provision of sub Section (8) of Section 173 of CrPC, which is extracted hereunder, in fact, it doesn’t, at any stage, contemplate that for the purposes of further investigation, a prior permission from the Magistrate concerned is required.

“Section 173 (8) : Nothing in this section shall be deemed to preclude further investigation in respect of an offence after a report under sub-section (2) has been forwarded to the Magistrate and, where upon such investigation, the officer in charge of the police station obtains further evidence, oral or documentary, he shall forward to the Magistrate a further report or reports regarding such evidence in the form prescribed; and the provisions of sub-sections (2) to (6) shall, as far as may be, apply in relation to such report or reports as they apply in relation to a report forwarded under sub-section (2).

6. The learned counsel for the applicants has submitted that addition of an offence under Section 149 of CrPC by virtue of the supplementary Chargesheet, would be bad in the light of the judgment relied on by her, as reported in 2023 (2) Crime SC 378, Pitambaram Vs. State of Kerala and others. The learned counsel for the applicants, in the context of the provisions contained under sub-Section (8) of Section 173 of CrPC, has particularly referred to the contents of para 17 of the said judgment, which is extracted hereunder:-

“17. The above two cases make it amply clear that a magistrate has the power to order further investigation and the cases referred to earlier make clear that fresh investigation/ reinvestigation/ de novo investigation fall into the purview of t