Same transaction test bars successive FIRs, while biased investigation can vitiate charge sheets and justify fresh inquiry.

Successive FIRs are impermissible where the complaints arise from the same incident, same occurrence, or one continuous transaction, assessed by comparing the FIRs, time, place, and surrounding facts; a counter-version or distinct crime remains permissible. Applying that sameness test to overlapping village facts, the second FIR was treated as barred. The text also emphasises that fair investigation is integral to criminal justice and personal liberty: where the investigation is selective, one-sided, or biased, the resulting charge sheets are vitiated. In such circumstances, a fresh independent investigation may be ordered to avoid miscarriage of justice.

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Issues: (i) Whether the second FIR was liable to be quashed on the ground that both FIRs arose out of the same transaction and occurrence. (ii) Whether the investigation was so biased and unfair that the charge sheets and consequential orders deserved to be quashed and a fresh investigation ordered.

Issue (i): Whether the second FIR was liable to be quashed on the ground that both FIRs arose out of the same transaction and occurrence.

Analysis: The governing principle is that more than one FIR may not stand if they relate to the same incident, same occurrence, or different parts of the same transaction, whereas a counter-version or distinct crime remains permissible. The test is one of sameness, to be applied by comparing the FIRs, the place and time of occurrence, and the surrounding circumstances. Here, the two FIRs concerned the same village episode, occurred in close proximity of time, covered overlapping scenes of occurrence, and referred to the same death and overlapping injuries. The scene panchnamas and the factual narrative showed that the incidents were not independent and were instead part of one continuous transaction.

Conclusion: The second FIR was rightly treated as impermissible and was liable to be quashed.

Issue (ii): Whether the investigation was so biased and unfair that the charge sheets and consequential orders deserved to be quashed and a fresh investigation ordered.

Analysis: Fair investigation is an essential facet of criminal justice and of the protection of personal liberty. Where the investigation is one-sided, selective, or actuated by bias, the resulting charge sheet cannot be treated as a reliable product of lawful investigation. The record showed serious irregularities, including selective recording of statements, omission of the rival community, and a prosecution pattern that created prejudice to one side. In such exceptional circumstances, further investigation by an independent agency was warranted to prevent miscarriage of justice. Since the charge sheets were the product of the tainted investigation, they could not survive.

Conclusion: The investigation was held to be tainted and unfair, the charge sheets and consequential orders were quashed, and fresh investigation was directed.

Final Conclusion: The decision upheld the quashing of the second FIR, recognised the investigation as vitiated by bias and unfairness, and required the matter to proceed only through a fresh lawful investigation.

Ratio Decidendi: Successive FIRs are barred where they concern the same incident or same transaction, but where the investigation itself is demonstrably biased and unfair, the resulting charge sheet cannot stand and an independent fresh investigation may be ordered to secure a fair criminal process.

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