TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2014 (12) TMI 1173
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....r of the deceased has attempted to point out certain deficiencies and contradictions in the findings of the investigating agency which in my opinion need to be investigated in a dispassionate attempt to discover the truth, by an outside agency like the CBI. ( 2. ) THE facts in the backdrop have been stated by my erudite sister in the order proposed by her. It will, therefore, serve no purpose to repeat them over again. That the deceased and her sister were admitted to the college as freshers is not in dispute. That she sustained injuries because of a fall from the fourth floor of the college hostel where she was staying with her sister is also not in dispute. That she was moved first to Dulet hospital and later to Sawai Man Singh hospital is also a fact not in dispute. That three days after her fall from the building she passed away is also admitted. What called for a fair and proper investigation was whether she fell because of ragging by the seniors as alleged by the Petitioner or she jumped to commit suicide. The case of the Respondents which includes the state of Rajasthan, the police and the college where she was studying, appears to be that she committed suicide because of a....
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....proper investigation cannot be understated. In an adversarial system of administration of justice, fairness of investigation is the very first requirement for the fairness of a trial. A trial based on a partisan motivated, one sided, or biased investigation can hardly be fair. That is because while the trial itself may be procedurally correct, the essence and the purpose thereof may be vitiated by an unfair or ineffective investigation. This Court has in several pronouncements, emphasized the importance of the fairness of the investigation. Reference, in this regard, may be made to the decision of this Court in Manu Sharma v. State (NCT of Delhi) : (2010) 6 SCC 1 where this Court while dealing with the fairness of the investigation said: The criminal justice administration system in India places human rights and dignity for human life at a much higher pedestal. In our jurisprudence an accused is presumed to be innocent till proved guilty, the alleged accused is entitled to fairness and true investigation and fair trial and the prosecution is expected to play balanced role in the trial of a crime. The investigation should be judicious, fair, transparent and expeditious to ensure com....
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....54, where the Court reiterated the legal position in the following words: The investigation into a criminal offence must be free from objectionable features or infirmities which may legitimately lead to a grievance on the part of the accused that investigation was unfair and carried out with an ulterior motive. It is also the duty of the Investigating Officer to conduct the investigation avoiding any kind of mischief and harassment to any of the accused. The Investigating Officer should be fair and conscious so as to rule out any possibility of fabrication of evidence and his impartial conduct must dispel any suspicion as to its genuineness. The Investigating Officer "is not to bolster up a prosecution case with such evidence as may enable the court to record conviction but to bring out the real unvarnished truth". (Vide R.P. Kapur v. State of Punjab : AIR 1960 SC 866; Jamuna Chaudhary and Ors. v. State of Bihar : AIR 1974 SC 1822; and Mahmood v. State of U.P. : AIR 1976 SC 69). 40. Therefore, if the Court, comes to the conclusion that the investigation has been done in a manner with an object of helping a party, the court may direct for further investigation and ordinarily not fo....
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.... facts and circumstances of a given case demand such an order. No hard and fast rule has been or can possibly be prescribed for universal application to all cases. Each case will obviously depend upon its own facts. What is important is that the Court while exercising its jurisdiction to direct transfer remains sensitive to the principle that transfers are not ordered just because a party seeks to lead the investigator to a given conclusion. It is only when there is a reasonable apprehension about justice becoming a victim because of shabby or partisan investigation that the Court may step in and exercise its extra ordinary powers. The sensibility of the victims of the crime or their next of kin is not wholly irrelevant in such situations. After all transfer of investigation to an outside agency does not imply that the transferee agency will necessarily much less falsely implicate anyone in the commission of the crime. That is particularly so when transfer is ordered to an outside agency perceived to be independent of influences, pressures and pulls that are common place when State police investigates matters of some significance. The confidence of the party seeking transfer in the....
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....but while doing so the test applied by the Court has always been whether a direction for transfer, was keeping in view the nature of allegations, necessary with a view to making the process of discovery of truth credible. What is important is that this Court has rarely if ever viewed at the threshold the prayer for transfer of investigation to CBI with suspicion. There is no reluctance on the part of the Court to grant relief to the victims or their families in cases, where intervention is called for, nor is it necessary for the Petitioner seeking a transfer to make out a cast iron case of abuse or neglect on the part of the State police, before ordering a transfer. Transfer can be ordered once the Court is satisfied on the available material that such a course will promote the cause of justice, in a given case. ( 9. ) IN the case at hand circumstances leading to the death of young college student girl have become the subject matter of investigation. The issue is sensitive not only because of loss of an invaluable human life but also because of the reasons which are sought to be attributed for the sordid affair. The circumstances which the Petitioner has referred to in the writ pe....
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....bout 12.30 P.M., it is alleged that two senior girls again caught S.S. for ragging by making her climb on the railing of the fourth floor forcing her to look towards the ground and while doing so, S.S. fell down and sustained injuries, and she remained as such on the ground for about half an hour. After someone noticed her, she was taken to "Dulet Hospital" where she was given first aid treatment and she was referred to Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital, Jaipur. The Petitioner contends that his younger daughter T.S. was threatened by the college authorities and warned not to disclose the fact of ragging or else her career would be ruined. Further, he claimed that the statement of his younger daughter T.S. recorded Under Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was obtained under coercion and threat of false charges being implicated against her and her sister. ( 12. ) S .S. sustained grievous injuries in her legs and spinal cord and after regaining her consciousness after three hours of being admitted in the hospital, she narrated the incident to T.S. The Petitioner reached the hospital on the evening of 7.9.2011 when the deceased recounted the incident to him. On 8.9.2011 at 7.3....
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....ward and doctors had given her immediate treatment. Respondent Nos. 5 to 7 further stated that all the risk factors were explained to the Petitioner by the doctors about septicaemia and infection and other complications if unwanted substances are not removed from the uterus of S.S. by induction. The Respondents also contend that the college authorities constituted a committee on 6.9.2011 itself to investigate the matter with regard to the ragging and the committee found that the deceased was having medical problems like nausea, vomiting and headache and there was no incident of ragging, as alleged by the Petitioner. It is averred that the allegations levelled in the petition are totally baseless and unfounded. According to Respondent Nos. 5 to 7, the complaint was thoroughly investigated by the police and on finding that there was no evidence of ragging, the police filed a final report in the Court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Jaipur. Respondent No. 8, namely, Central Bureau of Investigation, prayed that the investigation in the instant case should be left with the State police with the directions that a Special Investigation Team be constituted to reach some logical end as th....
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....power must be exercised sparingly, cautiously and in exceptional situations where it becomes necessary to provide credibility and instil confidence in investigations or where the incident may have national and international ramifications or where such an order may be necessary for doing complete justice and enforcing the fundamental rights. Otherwise CBI would be flooded with a large number of cases and with limited resources, may find it difficult to properly investigate even serious cases and in the process lose its credibility and purpose with unsatisfactory investigations." ( 17. ) HAVING regard to the materials on record, in my considered view, the case in hand is not such an exceptional situation warranting special investigation by the CBI. The writ petition is dismissed. However, the Petitioner is at liberty to work out the remedy in accordance with law. A.K. Goel, J. ( 18. ) I have perused the orders proposed by my esteemed brother Hon'ble T.S. Thakur, J. and my esteemed sister Hon'ble R. Banumathi, J., taking differing views in the matter of justification for the prayer of the Petitioner for transfer of investigation of F.I.R. No. 463 of 2011, registered at Poli....