Cop Conducting Probe Under Sec. 202 CrPC Can’t Issue Notice To Accused: Calcutta HC [Read Judgment]

‘Police officer conducting investigation under Section 202 CrPC is a delegatee of the magistrate and his powers of investigation are, therefore, circumscribed by the limitations imposed upon the principal, that is, the magistrate himself,’ the court observed.

The Calcutta High Court has observed that a police officer conducting investigation under Section 202 CrPC is a delegatee of the magistrate and he is not entitled to issue notice upon the accused and interrogate him in the course of investigation under Section 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Justice Joymalya Bagchi set aside such a notice issued to the accused under Section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure in which the person who was shown as an accused in the complaint was told to appear before him for the purpose of investigation. This notice issued was challenged before the high court.

The court observed that the police officer conducting investigation under Section 202 CrPC is a delegatee of the magistrate and his powers of investigation are, therefore, circumscribed by the limitations imposed upon the principal, that is, the magistrate himself. “Since the Magistrate in the course of enquiry under Section 202 CrPC is not entitled to issue notice upon the accused to appear and participate in the proceeding, the police officer as his delegatee cannot claim higher powers and issue notice upon the accused and interrogate him in the course of investigation under Section 202 CrPC,” the court said.

However, it clarified that the police officer may exercise other powers of investigation e.g. proceed to the spot, interrogate the complainant and his witnesses, collect evidence by effecting searches and seizures for the purpose of determining the intrinsic truth in the allegations in the complaint but he cannot in course of such investigation issue notice to the accused and interrogate him to elicit his responses to the allegations in the complaint.

“If he does so, he would be enlarging the scope of enquiry under Section 202 CrPC, wherein an accused is precluded from participating and raising his defences in rebuttal to the allegations in the petition of complaint the police officer as his delegatee cannot claim higher powers and issue notice upon the accused and interrogate him in the course of investigation under Section 202 CrPC,” the court said.

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