CHENNAI: A full bench of the Madras HC has ruled that the police have to mandatorily follow the procedure prescribed in Police Standing Order 566 while investigating a case and counter-case. The court also issued a set of guidelines for investigating such cases.
The judgment was delivered by the bench of Justices G Jayachandran, M Nirmal Kumar and N Anand Venkatesh based on a special reference made by Justice Anand Venkatesh while dealing with a case recently.
The points of reference included whether PSO 566 is mandatory and would its non-compliance vitiate the investigation, as judges, in the past, had given contradictory verdicts.
PSO 566 deals with the procedures to be followed in investigating and filing final reports in a case and counter-case.
Regarding the consequences of non-compliance with the PSO 566, the bench said it would depend upon the stage, at which, objection of non-compliance is raised.
The court held that it is the duty of the magistrate to screen out final reports which are filed in inconsistent rival versions of the same incident ie, where one rival version is true the other must be necessarily false, by returning with a direction to follow PSO 566. Where the magistrate inadvertently takes cognizance, the error may be set right by the high court under Section 528 BNSS, 2023 if the same is raised at an early stage.
Directing the police to “scrupulously follow” the guidelines issued by the bench, the court said trial of a case and counter-case shall be held simultaneously before the same court and the relevant guidelines shall be followed.
The guidelines for investigations of a case and counter-case included “no legal bar” on registering a case and counter-case arising out of rival versions of the same incident. If rival versions are preferred, an FIR may be registered for the rival complaints and the investigation officer is required thoroughly investigate both rival versions.