Closure Report On Basis Of Inconclusive Forensic Report Doesn’t Conclude That No Offence Is Made Out: Madhya Pradesh Upholds Voice Sample Collection in Bribery Case

The High Court was considering a Petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution against the impugned order passed by the Special Judge (PC Act), Bhopal, whereby the Court below had rejected the Closure Report submitted by the prosecuting agency and directed further investigation along with collection of fresh voice samples of the petitioner.

The Bench comprising Justice Anand Pathak and Justice Deepak Khot held, “While examining the first question, it is found by this Court that the RFSL, Bhopal has not given any opinion in regard to matching of the voice sample or the evidence that the transcript and the voice sample collected by the investigating agency is not matching with the voice sent for scientific investigation. But, in fact, the opinion is that that because of large intra-speaker variation it seems that the petitioner had made deliberate attempt of disguise because of inappropriate data containing speech which also does not contain proper words and phrase/sentence. Therefore, the opinion was tendered that no opinion can be given on such voice sample. From perusal of the FSL report filed in the reference tab of the ERP, this court is of the considered opinion that the sample which was sent to the FSL was inappropriate and insufficient to form an opinion. Therefore, closure report on the basis of such inconclusive evidence does not lead to the conclusion that on the basis of collected evidence no offence is made out.”

Senior Advocate Anil Khare represented the Petitioner while Advocate Abhinav Shrivastav represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The brief facts of the case are that a complaint was made by one Karan Gurjar against his landlord Syed Noman Hussain to the effect that he was running a Hotel in the building rented by his landlord under a rent agreement executed for 33 months, but the landlord committed vandalism in the hotel premises and got the premises evicted by fraudulent means and also dishonestly retained the articles belonging to the hotel, on which an FIR for the offence under section 420 of IPC was registered against the landlord. The petitioner, being an ASI, conducted an investigation into the matter, and it was alleged that the petitioner demanded Rs 30,000 as a bribe from the complainant on the pretext that he conducted the investigation and lodged an FIR against the landlord.

Since the complainant did not want to give a bribe, he made a complaint against the petitioner to the Dy.S.P. The Dy.S.P. handed over a digital voice recorder to the complainant and instructed him to record the conversation regarding the bribe demand. The complainant gave a second complaint on the same day alleging that the petitioner had asked complainant to come with illegal gratification of Rs.10,000 and he had recorded the conversation in a DVR, which was handed over. The transcript of the demand conversation was made, and thereafter the FIR was registered against the petitioner for the offence under section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. The trap proceedings were initiated 2-3 times, but the proceedings could not be completed as the petitioner was not found on the police station premises.

The voice samples of the petitioner and the complainant were sent along with the questioned voice to FSL, Bhopal. The investigation was completed, and a closure report was submitted before the court on the ground that in the transcript no direct or indirect demand for a bribe was found against the petitioner and also on the ground that RFSL Bhopal did not give any opinion in the absence of appropriate speech data containing clear words/phrases. However, the court below rejected the closure report and directed the Investigating Officer to conduct further investigation by collecting the voice sample of the petitioner and sending it to RFSL Bhopal for re-examination.

Reasoning

The Bench explained that the Explanation appended to section 7 of the Act of 1988 provides that even an attempt to receive gratification is an offence. “This court while going through the explanation appended to section 7 is of the opinion that the transcript of voice of the petitioner constitute an offence prima facie under the Act of 1988. Therefore, it is not the case that the offence is not made out on the face value of the report or the material and it cannot be thrown out at the stage of investigation, particularly when the learned court below has opined that the investigating officer has committed irregularity while collecting the evidence and doing the investigation”, it added.

On a perusal of the facts of the case, the Bench found that the sample which was sent to the FSL was inappropriate and insufficient to form an opinion. “As the opinion has been formed by the RFSL that the voice samples sent for scientific investigation was inappropriate and insufficient, it is safely opined that the investigation on which the closure report was submitted was not conclusive and sufficient”, it stated.

The Bench further clarified that the Magistrate has ample power to direct reinvestigation when, in his opinion, the investigation is faulty and found to be lacking material and sufficient evidence.

Decision

Thus, holding that the Magistrate had not committed any illegality in rejecting the closure report and directing further investigation by collecting a voice sample of the petitioner for further examination, the Bench dismissed the Petition.

Cause Title: Sanjay Sisodiya v. The State of Madhya Pradesh (Neutral Citation: 2026:MPHC-JBP:85170)

Appearance

Petitioner: Senior Advocate Anil Khare, Advocate Priyank Agrawal

Respondent: Advocate Abhinav Shrivastav

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