The Madras High Court has held that negligence on part of Investigating Officer (IO) in not filing chargesheet/ closure report cannot be attributed to the superintendent of Police, to initiate disciplinary proceedings, even though he supervises the investigation.

The Court was considering an Appeal against an order of the single judge whereby it ordered to initiate appropriate disciplinary proceedings against the 5 officers who worked at Cuddalore as SPs between 2015 and 2025.

The Division Bench of Justice N Sathish Kumar and Justice M. Jothiraman held, "...No doubt, the Superintendent of Police have to monitor the investigation conducted by the lower level officers, we are of the view that merely because some of the officers have violated the procedure and not filed final report or closure report in time before the Court, that negligence cannot be attributed to the Superintendent of Police. Therefore, we are of the view that direction to take disciplinary proceedings against the Superintendent of Police(s) who held the post from 2015 is not proper."

The Appellant was represented by Additional Public Prosecutor A.Damodaran, while the Respondent was represented by Advocate N.Palani Kumar.

Facts of the Case

The Respondent had filed a Petition under 482 Code of Criminal Procedure seeking for a direction to file final report in respect of the alleged jewel missing case of the year 2015. The grievance of the Respondent before the Single Judge was that despite the Complaint being given as early as during the year 2015 for the loss of jewels, no action was taken. It was informed by the police that since the case was undetected, the Complaint was closed as early as on November 2017. Thereafter, the Single Judge also called for the records as to whether any final report was filed or not for closing the case. As the final reports were not filed and RCS was not served on the Respondent, the Single Judge directed action against 14 SHOs who served from the date of registration of FIR.

Thereafter, the Single Judge also sought details of Superintendent of Police who served at the relevant time. Taking note of the fact that Superintendents of Police have the supervisory powers, they have not followed the case properly and they have not even verified whether final reports were properly filed in Courts of law, the Court directed the DGP, Tamil Nadu to initiate appropriate disciplinary proceedings.

Reasoning By Court

The Court noted that the Single Judge had taken a serious view of how the investigation proceeded in the matter and the investigating officer violated the procedure contemplated under Code had passed a direction to take disciplinary action against them.

However, it agreed with the Additional Public Prosecutor that merely procedures have not been followed by the Inspector of Police, the Superintendent of Police, who have held the post from the year 2015 cannot be brought into disciplinary proceedings.

The Appeal was accordingly allowed.

Cause Title: The State of Tamil Nadu v. Vijayarani

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Madras High CourtJustice N Sathish KumarJustice M. Jothiraman

Sheetal Joon