The Madhya Pradesh High Court ruled that a District Collector has no authority under the Code of Criminal Procedure to direct police to recall a closure report or reopen a concluded investigation. It held that such executive interference unlawfully encroaches upon powers reserved exclusively for the judiciary.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court held that a District Collector is not clothed with any power under the Code of Criminal Procedure to direct the police to recall a closure report or to reopen a concluded investigation, ruling that such executive interference trespasses upon a domain reserved exclusively for the judiciary.
Justice Jai Kumar Pillai delivered the ruling on a writ petition assailing an order of the Collector that had directed the Station House Officer of Police Station Kotwali to withdraw a closure report already forwarded in a criminal case and to resume the probe.
Background
The proceedings trace to an FIR registered as Crime No. 96/2020 at Police Station Kotwali, for offences under Sections 420, 467, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code provisions dealing with cheating and forgery. Upon investigation, the police concluded that there was insufficient material against the accused and submitted closure reports on May 7 and May 21, 2024.
In the ordinary course, such a report would have gone before the jurisdictional Magistrate for consideration. Instead, the Collector passed an order dated September 8, 2025, followed by two further memos, directing the police to recall the closure report and reopen the investigation. It was this series of communications that the petitioner, Deepak Manulal Garg, challenged before the High Court.
Appearing for the petitioner, Senior Advocate Amit Agrawal, with Advocate Arjun Agrawal, contended that the Collector’s directions were entirely without jurisdiction, submitting that nothing in the Code of Criminal Procedure empowers a District Collector to intrude upon a police investigation or to order the recall of a report already placed before the competent court.
For the State, Government Advocate Gaurav Rawat sought to sustain the Collector’s order, arguing that it was aimed merely at securing a fair and complete probe, and that the power of further investigation under Section 173(8) of the Code lent support to the directions.
Framing the question before it as whether the Collector had the statutory jurisdiction to order a recall of the closure report and a reopening of the investigation, the Court turned to the scheme of the Code. It observed that once a closure report is filed, the matter passes into the hands of the judiciary, with the jurisdiction to deal with it resting with the Judicial Magistrate concerned, who may accept the report, decline it and take cognisance, or direct further investigation.
While recognising that the police retain an independent statutory power of further investigation, the Court held that this authority cannot be set in motion at the command of the executive.
In the Bench’s words, the power under Section 173(8),
“cannot be invoked at the behest of an executive mandate from the District Collector.”
The Court underscored that a Collector exercises no supervisory, appellate or judicial role over the investigative process, and cautioned that allowing the executive to compel the recall of a report already forwarded to the Magistrate would let it appropriate a judicial function an outcome it described as,
“fundamentally destructive to the rule of law.”
Holding that an order passed without jurisdiction is a nullity in the eye of law, the Court found that the Collector had traveled beyond the scope of his statutory authority in directing both the reopening of the probe and the recall of the closure report. It accordingly allowed the writ petition and quashed the impugned order together with the subsequent memos.
The Court, however, clarified that its decision would neither impede the Judicial Magistrate from dealing with the closure report in accordance with law, nor curtail the investigating agency’s independent power under Section 173(8), so long as that power is exercised strictly as per law and uninfluenced by the quashed executive directions.
No order was passed as to costs.
Case Title: Deepak Manulal Garg vs. The State of Madhya Pradesh and Others