Chargesheet Is Complete If Court Can Satisfy Itself That Case For Cognizance Is Made Out: J&K&L High Court Refuses Bail In Police Paper Leak Scam

The Jammu and Kashmir & Ladakh High Court recently refused to grant statutory bail to the persons accused of causing gross irregularities in the conduct of written examinations for the posts of Sub Inspectors in the Jammu and Kashmir Police.

The Court refused to accept the contention that the chargesheet filed within the 60 days period was incomplete entitling them to the grant of statutory bail under Section 167(2) of the Criminal Procedure.

The Single Judge Bench of Justice Rajesh Sekhri noted that "What comes to the fore is that a charge sheet can be said to be complete, if it enables the court to apply its mind and satisfy itself, whether on the basis of the charge sheet and the material filed along with the police report, envisaged under Section 173 of Cr.P.C., a case form taking cognizance is made out or not."

The Court also observed that "It is the completion of investigation, relating to offences against the charge sheeted accused, which is material for the purpose of determining whether accused is entitled to the grant of statutory bail or not." 

The Petitioners herein were booked under the offences punishable under Sections 420-B IPC read with Sections 420, 411, 408, and 201 IPC. The Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Jammu had earlier declined the plea under Section 167(2) Cr.P.C. for default bail by holding that since the charge sheet stands filed, Court has already taken cognizance of the offences, and there are sufficient grounds to proceed. Being aggrieved with the same, the Petitioners approached the High Court under Section 437 of the CrPC seeking enlargement on statutory bail.

Appearing for the Petitioners, Senior Advocate Vikram Sharma submitted that since the investigation into a larger conspiracy of the case is admittedly underway, therefore, a charge sheet filed by the investigating agency in the trial court is a ruse to defeat the indefeasible right of the petitioners for default bail under Section 167(2) Cr.P.C.

It was contended that though the UT investigated the smaller conspiracy with respect to the petitioners, the larger conspiracy to unearth the criminal conspiracy amongst officials of JKSSB, M/s Merit Trac, Bengaluru, beneficiary candidates and other accused persons is still underway.

On the other hand, appearing for the UT of J&K, Additional Advocate General Monika Kohli argued that investigation in the present case is pending against other accused persons with respect to different aspects of the case and same would not justify the grant of default bail to the petitioners against whom investigation stands concluded.

Considering the submissions and the settled position of Law, the High Court noted that a charge sheet is final, if it is sufficient for the court to apply its mind to whether cognizance should be taken or not. It is also trite that filing of the charge sheet does not extinguish the statutory right of the investigating agency to conduct further investigation and to submit a supplementary report and this does not give the right of statutory bail to the accused. The investigating agency itself is vested with the power to conduct further investigation dehors court orders and leave of the court is not required for submitting a supplementary charge sheet. 

Further noting that the investigating agency in the ultimate paragraph 23 has submitted that investigation is underway to unearth a larger conspiracy to trace proceeds of crime, to establish the role of “other accused persons and suspects and other allegations levelled in the FIR”. It is evident from the concluding part of the charge sheet that the investigation is underway with respect to the role of other accused persons and suspects.

Accordingly, the Court found that the investigation and charge sheet with respect to coordinated conspiracy amongst the petitioners and co-accused, who have been charge-sheeted, with respect to leakage of question papers is complete and held that "Since petitioners in the present case came to be arrested on 19.09.2022 and charge sheet was laid on 12.11.2022 i.e. within the statutory period of 60 days, therefore, benefit of “Statutory Bail” in terms of Section 167 (2) Cr.P.C. cannot be extended to them."

Cause Title: Yatin Yadav and Others v. UT of J&K 

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