State police can investigate corruption cases against central employees: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has ruled that state police authorities are competent to investigate corruption cases against central government employees and that such cases are not the exclusive domain of the Central Bureau of Investigation.

A bench comprising Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Satish Chandra Sharma delivered the ruling while dismissing a special leave petition challenging a Rajasthan High Court judgment from October 2015. The High Court had refused to quash a corruption case registered by the Rajasthan Anti-Corruption Bureau against a central government employee.

The apex court upheld the High Court’s view, stating that proceedings initiated by a state’s anti-corruption agency cannot be invalidated merely because the CBI was not involved. It held that state police agencies do not require prior permission or consent from the CBI to register an FIR or file a charge sheet against a central government employee under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Dismissing the petition, the court said the High Court had taken the correct view in rejecting the argument that only the CBI could institute prosecution in such cases.

The bench observed that while the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, under which the CBI was constituted, empowers the central agency to investigate corruption cases involving central government employees, it does not divest state police of their authority to probe cognisable offences under other applicable laws.

The court further noted that under Section 156 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, any officer in charge of a police station is empowered to investigate a cognisable offence without prior approval from a magistrate. Such investigations, it added, cannot be challenged on the ground that the investigating agency lacked authority.