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Bimal Gurung v. Union of India

Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2018 INSC 240Decided 16 Mar 2018
Writ Petition (Criminal) No. 182 of 2017
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice Ashok Bhushan

Background

Bimal Gurung, President of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), led the Gorkhaland statehood agitation in the Darjeeling hills of West Bengal. As the agitation intensified in 2017 (including violence and a bomb blast), roughly 300 FIRs were registered against GJM members, with Gurung himself named in about 31 of them, covering offences ranging from unlawful assembly to more serious charges. Gurung filed a writ petition under Article 32 asking the Supreme Court to transfer investigation of all these FIRs from the West Bengal Police to an independent agency like the NIA or CBI, to extend the same to any future FIRs connected to the agitation, and to grant him anticipatory bail and police protection, arguing the West Bengal Police could not investigate fairly against a political opponent of the state government.

Decision Breakdown

The Court examined the settled legal principles on when investigation can be transferred to an independent agency under Article 32, generally reserved for cases of proven bias, persecution of an individual, or a demonstrated failure of the state machinery, and reviewed the precedents cited by the petitioner, finding each turned on its own distinguishable facts (mostly cases where victims, not accused persons, sought transfer). The Court held that merely being a political figure facing multiple FIRs during a state-wide agitation, without concrete proof of mala fide targeting or persecution by the state authority, did not meet the threshold for a mass transfer of all investigations to an outside agency. It concluded this was not a fit case for exercising Article 32 jurisdiction to transfer the FIRs en masse, and that the petitioner was not entitled to anticipatory bail or police protection either. The writ petition was accordingly dismissed.

Lesson Learnt

Transfer of a criminal investigation to an independent agency under Article 32 is an extraordinary remedy that requires concrete evidence of bias or persecution by the state machinery: a political leader facing numerous FIRs during a mass agitation cannot get investigations transferred away from the state police merely by alleging a political rivalry with the government.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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