TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (7) TMI 284
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.... 1. Heard Ms. Meenakshi Arora, Senior Advocate assisted by Mr. Sourabh Dangi, Mr. Harsh Shrivastava, Mr. Manohar Pratap Singh and Mr. Sajal K. Gupta, learned counsel for the Petitioner as well as Dr. Saurabh Kumar Pande, learned Deputy Advocate General, appearing for Respondents No. 1 to 3, Mr. Ramakant Mishra, learned Deputy Solicitor General for Respondent No. 4, Mr. Vijay Chawla, Advocate holding brief of Mr. Amit Chaudhari, learned counsel appearing for Respondent No. 5 and Mr. B. Gopa Kumar, learned counsel appearing for Respondent No. 6. 2. The present petition has been filed by the Petitioner with the following relief(s):- "I. That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to direct supervision of all investigations against the Petitioner by this Hon'ble Court for the purpose of an impartial and fair investigation; and/or II. That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to direct the Respondent Agencies/Authorities to produce before this Hon'ble Court the alleged material on the basis of which the Petitioner is being accused of conceptualising/conspiring/ committing the offences in the following FIRs:- (a) ECIR/RPZO/04/2023 dated 14.10.2023 registered by ED (Rice M....
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....ondent Agencies/Authorities based on the basis of material already in possession with any of the Respondent Agencies/Authorities without the permission of this Hon'ble Court; and/or V. That, this Hon'ble Court may grant any other relief in favour of the Petitioner, which it deems fit in the facts and circumstances of the case, in the interest of Justice." 3. Brief facts of the case, in a nutshell, are that the Petitioner, is a retired IAS officer who had served as a civil servant for over 34 years in the State of Chhattisgarh. At the relevant point of time, the Petitioner was posted as the Managing Director of Chhattisgarh Nagrik Apurti Nigam ('NAN')/State Civil Supplies Corporation at its headquarters in Raipur, Chhattisgarh from 29.05.2014 till 18.02.2015. As per the own statement of one Inspector R.K. Dubey, he was posted in the EOW on 06.12.2014, he apparently conducted verification of an anonymous complaint on 04.12.2014, even prior to being deputed to the EOW. It is evident that the verification of the alleged complaint was completely false and back-dated by one Inspector R.K. Dubey. He even back-dated an entry in the R. Complaint Register of the EOW by overwriting/re-numb....
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.... to the allegations made by the ACB, the Petitioner is in fact a whistle blower who had brought to light the corruption racket being run in NAN prior to his appointment and had exposed individuals at the highest levels of the State Government, Bureaucracy and investigating agencies. It is for this reason that the Petitioner has become the scapegoat. The fictitious nature of the case against the Petitioner is evident from the following - A. In 2014-15, Ministers of the then ruling party in the State of Chhattisgarh, i.e. the Bhartiya Janta Party, themselves had unequivocally stated that no complaint regarding procurement of any sub-standard rice or taking bribes in NAN during the relevant period had been made. B. In a reply filed by the State of Chhattisgarh before the Hon'ble High Court of Chhattisgarh in WP (PIL) No. 44/2015 it has been unequivocally stated on affidavit that the PDS system functioning in the State of Chhattisgarh during the relevant time, including the time when the Petitioner was the MD at NAN, was extremely efficient and was even praised by the Hon'ble Supreme Court. Notably, the said response was filed by the State of Chhattisgarh in 2016, i.e. while the BJ....
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....ildren to give false statements. Till date, despite passage of over 10 years, there has been no other material against the Petitioner apart from coerced and false statements of co-accused persons/persons who ought to have been made co-accused in the NAN case. It is clear that these persons who had given incriminating statements against the Petitioner had done so in exchange for saving their own skin and to deflect the blame onto the Petitioner for their alleged illegal acts - these persons were not named as accused in the chargesheet. The investigating officers of ACB/EOW, Raipur got the Petitioner implicated as a part of a larger political conspiracy which will become apparent from the facts that follow. 8. That abuse of process at behest of the agencies is also evident from the following chronology of events and facts in relation to the NAN case- a. The ACB/EOW, Raipur received sanction of the Central Government under S.197, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 ("Cr.P.C.") to prosecute the Petitioner on 18.07.2015. b. The prosecution sanction of the State Government under S.19(1), PC Act was received on 29.07.2016. This was despite the fact that according to its own stance befor....
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.... on the NAN FIR and chargesheet. It is apparent that powerful persons in the ruling dispensation between 2013-2018 became concerned with the constitution of the SIT and therefore resorted to the ED to take create obstacles/deviate the investigation and to make sure nothing incriminating surfaces against them. g. Conveniently, only the main accused, the Petitioner and another senior IAS officer (who is also being targeted) were named as suspects. None of the other government servants, including those from whom cash and other unexplainable immoveable properties were actually recovered as per the case of the agencies, were named as suspects. This primarily included persons who had given incriminating statements against the Petitioner. It is apparent that this was a quid pro quo for those persons to make the Petitioner a scape-goat and get exonerated themselves. h. The NAN ECIR was registered to trap the Petitioner in yet another round of criminal investigation and punish him through the process while at the same time protecting the political bosses who were in control of the ED. It is reiterated that till date, no proceeds of crime have been identified by the ED in relation to the....
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....s their hash value or IMEI number recorded. Further, devices of the Petitioner were seized even though the warrant of search was against only the Petitioner's wife and son and their beauty salon. Moreover, the devices were shown to have been copied on a hard disk on 28.02.2020 by the IT Department, even though the devices were seized by them on 29.09.2020, i.e. in a procedure completely unknown to law, the copying was done prior to the seizure leaving complete scope for tampering the record of the devices. This also explains why the CBI Manual or the Income Tax Digital Evidence Manual were not followed and no effort was made to secure the sanctity of the devices and their content. 10. Thereafter, when the data from the Petitioner's phone was allegedly extracted by the IT Department (on 11 occasions from 10.08.2020 to 16.01.2021), as per the Mazharnamas, the data was stated to be extracted from the Petitioner's Apple iPhone 11 Pro, whereas, as per the Panchnama, what was seized was the Petitioner's iPhone 11. Thus, whatever was extracted was evidently not from the Petitioner's phone and it is for that reason neither hash values were recorded at the time nor any measure taken to ens....
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.... to further prejudice the Petitioner, on 07.11.2020, the ED filed a Special Leave Petition, being SLP(Crl) 6323-24/2020, challenging the order dated 14.08.2020 passed by this Court in MCRCA No. 469/2020 granting anticipatory bail to the Petitioner. This SLP is still pending, and no stay of the operation of the Order dated 14.08.2020 has been granted to the ED despite passage of over 4.5 years since the filing of the said Petition. in the meanwhile, the trial in the NAN FIR was progressing and having realised that the Agency does not have enough material evident to substantiate their bogus allegations, the Agency devised ways to stall the trial. As the false case built against the Petitioner in the NAN FIR was unravelling, towards end of 2021, the ED filed a Writ Petition before this Court, being WP(Crl) 506/2021 seeking a transfer of the trial in the NAN FIR from Raipur to Delhi, a reinvestigation and a retrial. This was despite the fact that the ED did not have any locus whatsoever to seek such relief. This petition was filed with the sole aim of continuing the Petitioner's harassment by getting a de-novo investigation and trial in a (then) 6 (six) year old matter. The frivolous p....
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....etitioner's knowledge. The Income Tax Complaint was not only an attempt to multiply frivolous cases against the Petitioner, but also an attempt to increase the Petitioner's harassment by forcing him to engage in criminal cases in multiple geographies with different agencies. It was filed with the sole purpose of creating a scheduled offence, though untenable in law, for the ED. 14. Based on the Income Tax Complaint, on 18.11.2022, ED Raipur registered ECIR No. RPZO/11/2022 ("Income Tax ECIR") against the Petitioner, his son and other persons named in the Income Tax Complaint. Pertinently, the ECIR treated standalone Sec.120 B, IPC as the predicate offence (as other offences mentioned in the Income Tax Complaint are not scheduled offences in the PMLA). Notably, cognisance of Sec. 120-B, i.e. the alleged scheduled offence was in fact rejected by the jurisdictional Court subsequently. In fact, the same has not been taken till date. Despite the same, the ED illegally attached properties belonging to the Petitioner, arrested various persons, repeatedly summoned him and his son in the illegal proceedings, coerced persons into giving false statements against inter alia the Petitioner, a ....
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....ation of one FIR being FIR No. 196/2023 dt. 30.07.2023 ("UP FIR") in Gautam Budh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh (a State being governed by the Bhartiya Janta Party) and the second one being FIR No. 04/2024 dt. 17.01.2024 ("Chhattisgarh FIR") in Raipur, Chhattisgarh (which by that time was being governed by the Bhartiya Janta Party). The allegations and basis in both the aforesaid FIRs was identical and the Petitioner has been made to suffer custody in relation to both at the hands of the agencies. Relevantly, upon quashing of the prosecution complaint in relation to the Income Tax ECIR, the ED went on to illegally register ECIR/RPZO/04/2024 ("second Liquor ECIR") for the same alleged offence on 11.04.2024, using one of the FIRs i.e. FIR No. 04/2024 dt. 17.01.2024, that the ED itself had caused to be registered thus creating its own jurisdiction. Pursuant to the registration of the second Liquor ECIR that the harassment of the Petitioner increased exponentially. The Petitioner was first arrested by the ED on 21.04.2024 for in relation to an alleged Liquor Scam in an absolute abuse of state machinery. In a shocking turn of events, the Petitioner was summoned by the ACB, Raipur in relation to C....
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....n this regard that the Petitioner never went to Jharkhand, nor did the Petitioner meet any Excise Deputy Officer of Jharkhand, yet the Petitioner was arraigned in the Jharkhand Liquor FIR solely for ulterior motives. In the meantime, noting that no proceeds of crime were traced or prosecution complaint filed in 6 years of investigation by the ED, the Hon'ble Supreme Court was of the prima facie view that there was no reason to cancel the anticipatory bail granted to the Petitioner in the NAN ECIR. With the sole intent of ensuring the continued harassment of the Petitioner and to ensure that the sword of the bail cancellation keeps hanging on the head of the Petitioner, it was submitted on behalf of the ED and the ACB, Raipur that they will place on record an affidavit in support of the contention that the facility of anticipatory bail was misused by the Petitioner. Subsequently, 3 affidavits were filed on behalf of the ED and the ACB, Raipur however no substantial material was placed on record to suggest any violation of bail conditions by the Petitioner. In its fourth bite at the cherry, the State of Chhattisgarh filed a completely bogus Affidavit on 25.09.2024 ("Affidavit dated 2....
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....against the Petitioner so as to illegally seek his bail cancellation. Pertinently, neither has the Petitioner even been summoned once nor has any document been sought from him in relation to any of the FIRs mentioned in the Affidavit clearly showing that he does not have any role therein. 18. There is not even a whisper of any criminality against the Petitioner in any of the aforesaid chargesheets/prosecution complaints except the chargesheet filed by the ACB in the Rice Scam and the prosecution complaint filed by the ED in the Rice Scam. These averments are completely bogus and suffer from inherent contradictions and suppressions. Similar to the modus operandi adopted in the NAN case, since no incriminating material is available against the Petitioner, he is being sought to be implicated on the basis of false statements of certain persons, in particular Siddharth Singhania, who are either co-accused or ought to have been made co-accused of the Petitioner. They are being made approvers as quid pro quo for giving false statements against the Petitioner. He is being sought to be implicated falsely despite the fact that the Petitioner had no role whatsoever in the functioning of any ....
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.... of evidence against the Petitioner. The implication of the Petitioner in these FIRs shows how fanciful all of the criminal cases against the Petitioner actually are. The Petitioner is currently in custody only in relation to the Chhattisgarh Liquor FIR. The Petitioner has been implicated in these new FIRs only as an insurance - if the Petitioner gets relief in the Chhattisgarh Liquor FIR, then one of these new FIRs will be used to imprison him in the name of interrogation, and the cycle will continue so on and so forth. To continue the Petitioner's harassment, the Superintendent of Central Jail, District Raipur (where the Petitioner was lodged in connection with the Liquor ECIR) was made to join the conspiracy against the Petitioner and an application dated 18.10.2024 was filed before the Special Court (PMLA), Raipur to transfer the Petitioner from Central Jail, District Raipur to a District Jail, Kanker at District Uttar Bastar, a jail in a remote Naxal infested location, on the specious and unsubstantiated ground that the Petitioner was creating 'pressure' on the Raipur Jail administration. This Application was erroneously allowed by the Special Court (PMLA), Raipur but the said....
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....its Counter-Affidavit in response to SLP(Crl) No. 17659/2024, i.e. the Petition seeking regular bail in the Chhattisgarh Liquor FIR. In the Counter-Affidavit, besides regurgitating unfounded allegations that the Petitioner was involved in various scams and implicated in several criminal cases, the State of Chhattisgarh now also alleged that the Petitioner was a conspirator in a scam relating to taking commissions from suppliers of manpower services, which was being investigated in FIR No. 44/2024, dated 05.10.2024, registered by the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Economic Offences Wing, Raipur ("Manpower FIR"). Even this FIR does not name the Petitioner as an accused and was also registered based on a letter received from the ED. It is clear that the Petitioner was sought to be implicated in this new case only as an afterthought, with the objective of preventing the Petitioner from getting bail in the Chhattisgarh Liquor FIR, or, in case he did get bail, to embroil him in a new investigation and keep him behind bars without trial. The allegation in the Manpower FIR relates to taking of commission by officials of the Chhattisgarh State Marketing Corporation Ltd. ("CSMCL") for clearing of i....
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....en subjected to over 14 (fourteen) criminal cases, by 5 (five) investigating agencies. While the Agencies have alleged and portrayed as if the Petitioner was an extremely powerful person in the State of Chhattisgarh who was handling and directing IAS/IPS officers, it is relevant to note that the Petitioner retired as the Joint Secretary while all his batchmates were promoted to higher positions. 22. The Petitioner is not even getting his pension and other retirement benefits for which the Petitioner has approached the Central Administrative Tribunal, New Delhi. It is submitted that if the Petitioner was an all-powerful officer as alleged by the agencies, then there was no reason for the Petitioner's pension and benefits to have been curtailed and he would not have to fight for his rights before the CAT. It is evident that the Petitioner has been harassed and victimised across governments and the allegations of the Respondent Agencies about the political clout of the Petitioner is completely bogus. In connection with the investigation in these criminal cases, the Petitioner has appeared before investigating agencies on 13 occasions prior to being arrested. His house and his wife's ....
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....al strategy of the Petitioner. 23. Furthermore, despite extensive investigation in the Rice Milling FIR, DMF FIR, Mahadev FIR and Coal FIR, till date, the Petitioner has not been named as an accused in any of the Chargesheets filed in these FIRs. Pertinently, these FIRs were based on ED cases - the Petitioner is not named an accused in any of the ECIRs or Prosecutions Complaints in these ED cases. It is important to re-emphasise here that the Petitioner was not named in any of these FIRs to start with. The concern and apprehension of the Petitioner is not unfounded or illusionary. The Agencies have actually indulged in effective insurance arrests and evergreening of custody of various other persons in the State of Chhattisgarh itself. An illustration of the same is as follows - SAUMYA CHAURASIA - Total Custody - 910 days Date Particulars 02.12.2022 Arrested in Coal ECIR 23.05.2024 Arrested in Coal FIR after having spent over 15 months in custody already despite not having been questioned even once in custody before arrest. 25.09.2024 Granted interim bail in Coal ECIR which is continuing as on date 08.11.2024 Arrested in a disproportionate assets case after having al....
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.... co-accused persons had been granted protection in relation to the Chhattisgarh Liquor FIR. 04.04.2024 Arrested in the Chhattisgarh Liquor FIR by ACB Raipur 01.07.2024 Arvind Singh is produced before Spl. Judge PMLA, Raipur pursuant to production warrants and arrested in the Second Liquor ECIR 13.05.2025 Arvind Singh granted bail in the second Liquor ECIR 19.05.2025 Arvind Singh granted bail in the Chhattisgarh Liquor FIR 24. It is the reasonable apprehension of the Petitioner that the manner in which the Petitioner has been collusively targeted and arrested successively by the Respondent Agencies in the alleged Liquor scam, one of which arrest has been strongly deprecated by the Hon'ble Supreme Court as being "disturbing" and "glaring" and the another one declared illegal, will continue. The Petitioner apprehends that he will be continually arrested one after the other in the various other cases that the agencies have lined up for him, as is evident from the Affidavit dated 25.09.2024 in utter abuse of process of law and State machinery. It is blatantly evident that the Petitioner is being targeted by the Respondent Agencies in a vindictive manner for ulterior politic....
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....ed 12.07.2022 PS Kadugodi, Bengaluru 08.06.2023 (closure report qua scheduled offences) 6. ECIR/RPZO/9/2022 dated 29.09.2022 (Coal ECIR) Directorate of Enforcement 09.12.2022 7 993 days 30.01.2023 8 18.08.2023 11 29.03.2025 9 Total 35 7. FIR No. 03/2024 dated 17.01.2024 (Coal FIR) ACB/EOW Raipur 19.07.2024 15 518 days 10.10.2024 2 Total 17 8. ECIR/RPZO/11/2022 dated 18.11.2022 (First Liquor ECIR) Directorate of Enforcement 04.07.2023 (stayed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court on 18.07.2023) 7 244 days 9. FIR No. 04.2024 dated 17.01.2024 (Chhattisgarh Liquor FIR) ACB/EOW Raipur 01.07.2024 4 518 days 26.09.2024 4 18.11.2024 3 Total 11 10. ECIR/RPZO/04/2024 dated 11.04.2024 (Second Liquor ECIR) Directorate of Enforcement 19.06.2024 1 433 days 30.08.2024 6 05.10.2024 2 12.03.2025 12 Total 21 11. ECIR/RPZO/10/2022 dated 06.10.2022 (Mahadev ECIR) Directorate of Enforcement 20.10.2023 14 986 days 01.01.2024 5 01.03.2024 3 30.04.2024 23 Total 45 12. FIR No. 06/2024 dated 04.03.2024 (Mahadev FIR) ACB/EOW Raipur 19.07.2024 10 471 days 26. Ms. Meenakshi Arora, learned Senior Counsel for the petiti....
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....s nothing to do with any of the alleged cases, it is submitted that the Petitioner has been lodged in Raipur Central Jail for over 14 months now. The Petitioner has not been questioned by any of the agencies even once in relation to the other cases. If the agencies actually had to conduct any investigation, there was no embargo upon them to investigate and question while in custody. Instead, the agencies are keeping the option of arresting the Petitioner in other cases open as their goal is not to investigate but to harass the Petitioner. It is submitted that the arrest of the Petitioner is not necessary since he is already in custody in another case. The timing of initiation of the criminal cases against the Petitioner and/or his implication in pending criminal cases, on the face of it, shows the abuse of investigative powers and the power of arrest available with the agencies:- a. the Petitioner was implicated in new cases in order to frustrate relief granted / anticipated to be granted by Courts to the Petitioner in old cases - the objective has been to prevent the Petitioner from getting relief, or in case, he does get relief, to embroil him in a new investigation and keep hi....
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....tion and arrests/incarceration of the Petitioner in the afore-stated matters. It has been further aruged that the NAN FIR - the entire case against the Petitioner was based on 'confessions' of perpetrators of the crime who were induced to implicate the Petitioner in return for immunity. These persons have subsequently retracted their statements against the Petitioner during the course of trial. To this effect, it is to be noted that the then BJP Government itself dismissed the theory of the alleged NAN Scam as evolved by the ACB. Consequently, the NAN ECIR is also without any substances as it is predicated on the NAN FIR. Even otherwise, the NAN ECIR was registered prior to the 2019 amendment in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 ("PMLA") - it did not disclose that proceeds of crime had been projected or claimed to be untainted, which was a sine qua non, for the offence of money laundering under Section 3, PMLA to be made out (prior to the 2019 amendment). It has been submitted that various other cases are allegedly premised on the message conversations allegedly recovered from the Petitioner's phone after the IT Departments search and seizure on 27.02.2020 to 01.03.2020.....
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....er FIR and he has been implicated in these only through an affidavit filed by the State of Chhattisgarh before the Hon'ble Supreme Court. It is therefore clear that the Petitioner has been trapped in frivolous and vicious cycle of cases. New cases are being filed against the Petitioner not because of any incriminating evidence, rather to keep the investigative pot boiling so that that Petitioner is caught in an endless loop of criminal investigations wherein his liberty can be curtailed by new arrests and new raids in each new case. It has been further argued that similar modus operandi has been adopted by the Agencies in respect of other persons in Chhattisgarh as well where they have been implicated and arrested in consecutive cases only when they were about to be released/protected in other cases. The modus operandi of effecting insurance arrest is not alien to the Agencies in the instant case and this practice has been deprecated by the Hon'ble Supreme Court as well. 29. Ms. Arora submitted that it is apparent from the fact that even though the Petitioner has been in judicial custody since April 2024, no effort has been made to interrogate him in relation to the Rice Milling F....
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....that the petitioner has sought a blanket order directing the authorities for protection in 12 FIRs, which is impermissible under the settled principles of law. The Respondents have also asserted that there is no statutory provision protecting the accused in pursuant to the FIRs, as such a practice would amount to granting an undue advantage to persons accused of serious offences and would hinder the investigation process. Additionally, it was argued that the petitioner's plea, if granted, would set a dangerous precedent wherein public servants accused of corruption or misconduct could claim immunity by demanding a pre-trial hearing. They have further contended that adequate legal safeguards are available to the petitioner under the existing legal framework, including the right to seek anticipatory bail. 31. Learned counsel for the respondents have further submitted that investigation is yet to be carried out in the matter. At this stage, it cannot be ascertained whether the authorities are filing a charge sheet against the petitioner or closure report is being submitted. Issuance of interim protection is also not permissible. It is submitted that the statutory provisions are avail....
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....Uttar Pradesh and others, (2008) 2 SCC 409, has held in following terms :- "27. As we have already observed above, the Magistrate has very wide powers to direct registration of an FIR and to ensure a proper investigation, and for this purpose he can monitor the investigation to ensure that the investigation is done properly (though he cannot investigate himself). The High Court should discourage the practice of filing a writ petition or petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C. simply because a person has a grievance that his FIR has not been registered by the police, or after being registered, proper investigation has not been done by the police. For this grievance, the remedy lies under Sections 36 and 154(3) before the concerned police officers, and if that is of no avail, under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C. before the Magistrate or by filing a criminal complaint under Section 200 Cr.P.C. and not by filing a writ petition or a petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C. 28. It is true that alternative remedy is not an absolute bar to a writ petition, but it is equally well settled that if there is an alternative remedy the High Court should not ordinarily interfere. 29. In Union of India vs. Pra....
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....urt. In dealing with such cases, the High Court has to bear in mind that judicial intervention at the threshold of the legal process initiated against a person accused of committing offence is highly detrimental to the larger public and societal interest. The people and the society have a legitimate expectation that those committing offences either against an individual or the society are expeditiously brought to trial and, if found guilty, adequately punished. Therefore, while deciding a petition filed for quashing FIR or complaint or restraining the competent authority from investigating the allegations contained in FIR or complaint or for stalling the trial of the case, the High Court should be extremely careful and circumspect. If the allegations contained in FIR or complaint disclose commission of some crime, then the High Court must keep its hands off and allow the investigating agency to complete the investigation without any fetter and also refrain from passing order which may impede the trial. The High Court should not go into the merits and demerits of the allegations simply because the petitioner alleges malus animus against the author of FIR or the complainant. The High....
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....o ensure that such a power under Article 226 is not to be exercised liberally so as to convert it into Section 438 Cr.P.C. proceedings. It is further observed that on the other hand whenever the High Court finds that in a given case if the protection against pre-arrest is not given, it would amount to gross miscarriage of justice and no case, at all, is made for arrest pending trial, the High Court would be free to grant the relief in the nature of anticipatory bail in exercise of its powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, keeping in mind that this power has to be exercised sparingly in those cases where it is absolutely warranted and justified. However, such a blanket interim order of not to arrest or "no coercive steps" cannot be passed mechanically and in a routine manner. 23. So far as the order of not to arrest and/or "no coercive steps" till the final report/chargesheet is filed and/or during the course of investigation or not to arrest till the investigation is completed, passed while dismissing the quashing petitions under Section 482 Cr.P.C. and/or under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and having opined that no case is made out to quash the FIR/c....
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....case of Habib Abdullah Jeelani (supra) and the law laid down by this Court in the present case, which otherwise the High Courts are bound to follow. We caution the High Courts again against passing such orders of not to arrest or "no coercive steps to be taken" till the investigation is completed and the final report is filed, while not entertaining quashing petitions under Section 482 Cr.P.C. and/or Article 226 of the Constitution of India." 39. Further, in the matter of Ravuri Krishna Murthy v. State of Telangana and others, (2021) 19 SCC 458, Hon'ble Supreme Court has held as under:- "10 .... Such a direction by the High Court has the effect of impeding the course of the investigation and has no basis or justification in law. The petition under section 482 was for quashing the FIR. The High Court found no substance in the petition. The matter should have ended there. The order restraining arrest was not in aid of further proceedings. Indeed, the proceedings were at an end once the High Court declined to quash the FIR. A person in the position of the third respondent has remedies available under the Code of Criminal Procedure to protect his liberty by either seeking anticipato....
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....gants from invoking the inherent jurisdiction of the Court on the drop of a hat to file an application for quashing of launching an FIR or investigation and then seek relief by an interim order. It is further observed that it is the obligation of the court to keep such unprincipled and unethical litigants at bay. 42. In the recent decision of this Court in the case of Ravuri Krishna Murthy (supra), the Hon'ble Supreme Court has set aside the similar order passed by the Andhra Pradesh High Court of granting a blanket order of protection from arrest, even after coming to the conclusion that no case for quashing was established. 43. Normally, when the investigation is in progress and the facts are hazy and the entire evidence/material is not before the High Court, the High Court should restrain itself from passing the interim protection and the accused should be relegated to apply for anticipatory bail under Section 438 Cr.P.C./482 of BNSS before the competent Court. 44. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Nivedita Sharma v. Cellular Operators Association of India, (2011) 14 SCC 337, has held that "where hierarchy of appeals was provided by the statute, a party must exhaus....