The Supreme Court has observed in the State of Jammu and Kashmir v Dr Saleem ur Rehman that the enquiry conducted at the stage of Preliminary Enquiry can be considered as an investigation under the code of criminal procedure, and can only be conducted after registration of the FIR and also observed that merely because some more time is taken for conducting such a preliminary enquiry, that cannot be a ground to quash the criminal proceedings for an offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
The Bench of Justices MR Shah and AS Bopanna has considered High Court to have committed a grave error in quashing the entire criminal proceedings on failure to obtain prior sanction u/s 155 of J & K CrPC. The Bench further stated that the offence under the Prevention of Corruption Act was a substantive offence and when the investigation in respect of the offence under the PC Act is considered and coupled with the offence of conspiracy, there was no requirement of prior sanction of the Magistrate. It was said that merely because the offence of the conspiracy was involved, which is a cognizable offence under the PC Act, the investigation into the present case was not required to await a sanction from the Magistrate, since that would lead to a considerable delay and affect the investigation and it will derail the investigation.
Thus the Bench termed the High Court's observations of declaring clause 3.16 ultra vires as erroneous since merely because some more time is taken in conducting the Preliminary Enquiry before registering the FIR, the entire criminal proceedings cannot be quashed.
We offer a wide range of lawyers to cater to all your every legal needs and requirement.
Our team provides you support in managing your legal issue without any additional and hidden charges.
Once you finalise the lawyer, you can proceed with predefined time estimation & pricing.
Dedicated Case Follow-up Manager to assist you in coordination with the Lawyer.