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Royden Harold Buthello & Anr. vs. State of Chhattisgarh & Ors.

Criminal Appeal · 2023 INSC 180Decided 28 Feb 2023
Criminal Appeal No. 634 of 2023
A.S. Bopanna · Ahsanuddin Amanullah

Background

The first appellant, a Mumbai-based automobile engineer who also helped run his father's transport business, was allegedly abducted from a hotel in Odisha by men claiming to be Chhattisgarh police on 20 October 2020, and was later shown as arrested in Raipur the next day with 9.240 grams of cocaine, leading to an FIR under the NDPS Act. His father, the second appellant, filed complaints alleging his son had been framed. The appellants approached the Chhattisgarh High Court seeking a CBI investigation into the FIRs and to quash the charge sheet, arguing the timeline was impossible since the son was allegedly already in illegal police custody in another state when the offence was supposedly committed. The High Court declined to order a CBI probe or interfere with the framing of charges, and the appellants approached the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court reviewed settled precedent (including State of West Bengal vs. Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights, Mithilesh Kumar Singh, and Arnab Ranjan Goswami) holding that transferring investigation to the CBI is an extraordinary power to be used sparingly, only where necessary to preserve public confidence in the fairness of the investigation, and not merely because an accused makes allegations against the local police. The Court found the appellants' claim of abduction and frame-up was a seriously disputed factual matter: precisely the kind of dispute that should be resolved through evidence and cross-examination at trial, not through affidavits in a writ petition. Noting that charges had already been framed, trial was underway, and the persons named as having abducted the appellant would be available for cross-examination in the pending trial, the Court held there was no exceptional circumstance warranting a CBI transfer. The appeals were dismissed, but all of the appellants' factual contentions were left open to be argued before the trial court, including any future civil remedy for malicious prosecution if the allegations were later proved true.

Lesson Learnt

Courts will not order a CBI investigation just because an accused alleges the local police framed them; such serious factual disputes about the genuineness of a case must ordinarily be tested through evidence and cross-examination at trial, with transfer of investigation reserved for truly exceptional situations affecting public confidence in the justice system.

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

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