Supreme Court Directs CBI To Probe Suspicious Death Of Senior Judicial Officer’s Wife
|The Supreme Court has directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to carry out the probe in a case of suspicious death of a Senior Judicial Officer’s wife.
The Court was deciding a criminal appeal filed by the mother and brother of the deceased woman having apprehension that her husband having sufficient influence being a senior judicial officer had managed the post mortem in which the case of death was shown to be suicide by hanging.
The two-Judge Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Prasanna B. Varale said, “It is true that power to direct CBI to conduct investigation is to be exercised sparingly and such orders should not be passed in routine manner. In the present case, the aggrieved party has raised allegations of bias and undue influence on the police machinery of the State of Chhattisgarh. Coupled with the fact that the thorough, fair and independent investigation needs to be carried out to find out the truth about the whole incident and in particular about the ante mortem injuries. We are of the view that such a direction needs to be issued in the present case.”
Advocate Dinesh Jotwani represented the appellants while Solicitor General Tushar Mehta represented the respondents.
Factual Background -
The respondent was selected and appointed as the Additional District Judge in 2013 and he got married to the deceased in 2014. However, they had known each other since 2010. The deceased was working as Asstt. District Prosecution Officer and both were posted at Dantewada. In 2016, at night, the appellants (mother and brother of the deceased) received a phone call that the deceased had committed suicide and hence, they immediately rushed from Bilaspur to Dantewada and tried to figure out as to what had happened. According to the appellants, they were not provided with the post mortem report. They alleged that there was something fishy in the deceased woman’s death and that it was not a case of simple suicide. It was also their apprehension that the respondent having sufficient influence being a senior judicial officer had managed the post mortem in which the cause of death was shown to be suicide by hanging.
The post-mortem report further indicated that the deceased had six ante-mortem injuries on her body. The cause of death was reported to be asphyxia due to hanging. As per the appellants, the Police filed the closure report treating it to be a case of suicide. They repeatedly continued to represent to authorities for a fair investigation after registering FIR and ultimately, all the complaints were closed. They contended that neither FIR was registered on the several complaints made by them nor a fair investigation was carried out in order to find out the truth. As a result, they filed a writ petition before the Chhattisgarh High Court but the same remained pending for about 7 years and it was then dismissed. Challenging this, they approached the Apex Court.
The Supreme Court in the above regard directed, “We accordingly allow this appeal, set aside the impugned order passed by the High Court and further direct the CBI-respondent no.8 to carry out complete and fair investigation and proceed in accordance to law into the incident and that too expeditiously considering the fact that the incident is of 2016 and submit a report to this Court.”
The Court added that if the CBI finds that an FIR needs to be registered, it may itself do so and proceed accordingly and bring such complaint to a logical conclusion, however, if it comes to the conclusion that there is no material which it could collect which is not sufficient in ordinary course to submit a chargesheet, it would close the proceedings.
“The State of Chhattisgarh is directed to extend all cooperation to the CBI in conducting the investigation and provide all necessary papers and other strategic support to the CBI as may be required”, it further ordered.
Accordingly, the Apex Court allowed the appeal and issued necessary directions.
Cause Title- Mandakini Diwan and Anr. v. The High Court of Chhattisgarh & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 666)
Appearance:
Appellants: AOR Dhawesh Pahuja, Advocates Dinesh Jotwani, Bhargava Baisoya, Shruti Singh, Shivalika Midha, Narendra Bahadur Tiwari, Nilesh Sharma, and Saket Gogia.
Respondents: Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, AAG Avdhesh Kumar Singh, AORs Prashant Singh, Apoorv Kurup, Himanshu Shekhar, Mukesh Kumar Maroria, Advocates Rajat Nair, Prerna Dhall, Piyush Yadav, Akanksha Singh, Nidhi Mittal, Gauri Goburdhun, Aanchal, Akhil Hasija, Gurjas Singh Narula, Arnav Mittal, Shaurya Agarwal, Parth Shekhar, and Shubham Singh.