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IN THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH AT JABALPUR BEFORE HON'BLE SHRI JUSTICE ANAND PATHAK &

HON'BLE SHRI JUSTICE DEEPAK KHOT rd ON THE 23 OF OCTOBER, 2026 WRIT PETITION No. 34200 of 2026 CNR No.: MPHC010604612026 SANJAY SISODIYA Versus THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH AND ANR Appearance:

Shri Anil Khare - Senior Advocate with Shri Priyank Agrawal, learned counsel for the petitioner.

Shri Abhinav Shrivastava, learned counsel for the respondent/State.

ORDER Per: Justice Deepak Khot The present petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been filed against the impugned order dated 22.7.2026 passed by the learned Special Judge (PC Act), Bhopal in MJC (R) No.1395/2026, whereby the learned court below has rejected the Closure Report (Khatma No.2/2025) submitted by the prosecuting agency and directed further investigation along with collection of fresh voice samples of the petitioner.

2. The brief facts of the case are that a complaint was made by one Karan Gurjar against his landlord Syed Noman Hussain to the effect that he was running a Hotel in the building rented by his landlord under a rent agreement executed for 33 months, but the landlord committed vandalism in the hotel premises and got the premises evicted by fraudulant means and also dishonestly retained the articles belonging to the hotel, on which an FIR for the offence under section 420 of IPC was registered against the landlord. The petitioner being ASI conducted investigation into the matter and it is alleged that the petitioner demanded Rs.30,000/- as a bribe from the complainant on the pretext that he conducted investigation and lodged FIR against landlord. Since Karan Gurjar did not want to give bribe, he made a complaint against the petitioner to the Dy.S.P. The Dy.S.P. handed over a Sony digital voice recorder to the complainant and instructed him to record the conversation regarding the bribe demand. Head Constable Brijbihari Pandey was sent as a shadow witness along with the complainant. The complainant gave a second complaint on the same day alleging that petitioner has asked complainant to come with illegal gratification of Rs.10,000/- and he has recorded the conversation in DVR which was handed over. Thereafter, 2 independent witnesses were summoned and a trap was organised to catch the petitioner red handed. The transcript of the demand conversation was made and thereafter FIR bearing Crime No.82/2024 (annexure P/2) was registered against the petitioner for the offence under section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act of 1988'). The trap proceedings were initiated 2-3 times but the proceedings could not be completed as the petitioner was not found in the police station premises. The voice samples of the petitioner and the complainant were sent along with the questioned voice to FSL, Bhopal. The investigation was completed and closure report No.2/2025 dated 12.03.2026 was submitted before the court on the ground that in the transcript no direct or indirect demand of bribe was found against the petitioner and also on the ground that RFSL Bhopal did not give any opinion in absence of appropriate speech data containing clear words/phrases. However, the court below rejected the closure report and directed the Investigating Officer to conduct further investigation by collecting the voice sample of the petitioner and sending it to RFSL Bhopal for re-examination thereby collecting fresh relevant evidence independently and after investigation proceed in accordance with law.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that the learned Special Judge committed grave error of law by rejecting the closure report and ordering fresh voice sampling and further investigation, which amounts to a roving inquiry, violating the protection under Article 20(3) of the Constitution of India. It is further submitted that there was no direct and clear demand raised for illegal gratification by the pe