A judicial order rejecting a police closure report and directing further investigation must be supported by cogent reasons and an analysis of the evidence; cryptic orders without reasons are unsustainable and violate the principles of natural justice.

ORDER

03.07.2026

01. Petitioners have invoked the inherent jurisdiction of this Court vested under Section 528 BNSS, 2023, to seek quashment/setting aside of order dated 07.09.2024 (hereinafter to be referred to as “impugned order”) passed by the court of learned Special Mobile Magistrate (Sub Judge), Poonch (hereinafter to be called as “learned Magistrate”) in Final Closure Report No. 01/2024 arising out of FIR No. 133/2023 under Sections 452, 323, 427, 506, 34 IPC registered at Police Station, Poonch whereby the protest petition filed by one Rimpal Kumar Sharma-respondent No. 2, as complainant, was accepted and the Final Closure Report was returned to the SHO, Police Station, Poonch for further investigation with a direction to either investigate the case himself or assign the investigation to any other I.O not below the rank of Sub Inspector.

02. The impugned order has been assailed on the grounds that the same has resulted into miscarriage of justice as no cogent reasons have been assigned by the court below to decline the Final Closure Report submitted by respondent No. 1 after indepth investigation of the case; that the learned Magistrate believed the unsubstantiated allegations of the complainant that I.O with malafide intention changed the statements of the witnesses due to the clout of Sr. Superintendent of Police-Ashok Sharma, a close kin of the parties; that the learned Magistrate, without commenting upon the merits of the investigation or without pointing out any lacunae in the investigation or any infirmity in the investigation, erroneously and illegally accepted the protest petition and directed further investigation in the matter, thereby resulting in grave prejudice to the petitioners; that the learned Magistrate, without any justification, gave credence to a bald assertion not supported by any evidence and, accordingly, declined to accept the Final Closure Report on an unsubstantiated allegations that the I.O with the malafide intention changed the statements of the witnesses and that further investigation was ordered erroneously and contrary to the legal and factual aspects involved in the case.

03. Pursuant to notice, the respondent No. 1 did not file any response to the petition, whereas, the respondent No. 2- complainant, on whose protest petition the impugned order was passed, refused to accept notice, as such, the matter is taken up for final consideration.

04. Learned counsel for the petitioners, while reiterating the grounds enumerated in the petition, argued that the learned Magistrate has passed the impugned order without assigning any reasons and it appears that he has accepted the bald assertions made by the complainant in his protest petition leveling allegations on a senior police officer, who happened to be the maternal uncle of the petitioner No. 1 and also a close relative of the complainant; that the petitioner No. 1 is a postgraduate and had recently cleared his PhD entrance for University of Patiala, whereas, petitioner No. 2 is a businessman at Poonch and petitioner No. 3 is also a postgraduate and all of them have no past criminal record and that they have been falsely implicated in a criminal case, with a view to spoil their careers, so that the respondent No. 2- complainant could settle the land dispute as per his choice.

05. He further argued that the petitioners had been falsely implicated by the respondent No. 2-complainant in the complaint lodged for registration of the case over a small altercation between them, with regard to the boundary of their already partitioned shares of the land; that the police had investigated the matter in a fair manner and c