The Supreme Court of India set aside the Andhra Pradesh High Court verdict that quashed multiple corruption FIRs, calling the approach a “travesty of justice”. The top court allowed the Andhra Pradesh Anti-Corruption Bureau to continue investigations and barred the High Court from entertaining further challenges to the FIRs.
The Supreme Court of India on Thursday strongly criticised the Andhra Pradesh High Court for quashing multiple FIRs in corruption cases and set aside the high court’s earlier verdict. The top court said the high court took “undue pains” to ensure that the FIRs were quashed and described its approach as a serious failure of justice.
A Bench comprising Justices M M Sundresh and Satish Chandra Sharma observed that the high court’s handling of the matter was deeply flawed and ruled that it should not entertain any further challenges to the FIRs or the ongoing investigations in these cases.
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The Supreme Court made it clear that the investigation into the corruption cases must continue without interference.
The apex court was hearing appeals filed by the Andhra Pradesh Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) and others, who had challenged the Andhra Pradesh High Court’s judgment passed in August last year.
That judgment had quashed several FIRs registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act, effectively stopping investigations at an early stage in some cases and completely ending criminal proceedings in others.
While examining the matter, the Supreme Court noted that the high court had focused only on a technical issue relating to the jurisdiction of the police station that registered the FIRs.
The FIRs in question were registered between 2016 and 2020 at the office of the ACB’s Vijayawada police station by the Central Investigation Unit of the Andhra Pradesh ACB.
The accused persons had approached the high court claiming that the ACB’s Vijayawada police station was not properly notified as a “police station” under Section 2(s) of the old Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and therefore did not have the authority to register FIRs.
Accepting this argument, the high court had ruled that in the absence of a formal notification published in the official gazette, the police station lacked jurisdiction.
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Rejecting this reasoning, the Supreme Court said,
“In our considered view, the approach of the high court is nothing but a travesty of justice. If, on a hyper-technical ground, the FIRs are quashed, the high court is duty-bound to lay down the law with respect to the jurisdiction that otherwise exists,”.
The Bench referred to Section 2(s) of the CrPC, which defines what constitutes a police station, and emphasised that courts must look at substance and practical compliance rather than rigid technicalities. It found the high court’s insistence on a specific form of notification to be legally unsustainable.
The Supreme Court further said,
“The reasoning of the high court, that a declaration by way of a notification has to be published in the official gazette for due compliance of Section 2(s) of the CrPC, 1973, is, to say the least, unacceptable. One has to see the substance and due compliance, in spirit,”.
The Bench also strongly disagreed with the high court’s view that a 2022 government order clarifying the status of the ACB police station would not affect FIRs already registered. Calling this conclusion fundamentally flawed, the Supreme Court said,
“It said the finding that the subsequent clarificatory government order of 2022 will not affect the FIRs registered was ‘totally untenable and against the basic canons of law’,”.
Criticising the manner in which the FIRs were struck down, the Bench observed,
“In our considered view, the high court took undue pains to ensure that the FIRs are quashed. When a government order is issued by way of a clarification, there is no question of any retrospective application,”.
The 2022 government order had clarified that the office of the Joint Director of the Central Investigation Unit of the ACB at Vijayawada would be treated as a police station with jurisdiction across the entire state of Andhra Pradesh.
The Supreme Court also took note of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, under which Telangana was carved out as a separate state from the undivided Andhra Pradesh. The Act came into force on June 2, 2014, and the Bench considered this background while assessing administrative and jurisdictional arrangements.
Concluding the matter, the Supreme Court said,
“Accordingly, we have no hesitation in setting aside the impugned judgment,” and added, “However, we make it clear that the High Court of Andhra Pradesh shall entertain no more challenges to the FIRs.”
The Bench granted liberty to the ACB to proceed with the investigations. It was informed that in some cases, charge sheets had already been filed. While allowing the investigations to continue, the court also protected the rights of the accused by permitting them to challenge the charge sheets on grounds other than jurisdiction.
The Bench clarified,
“We further make it clear that in those cases where the investigation is still pending, the appellant(s) shall not take any coercive action, while the respondents herein are expected to lend their due cooperation,”.
With this ruling, the Supreme Court has reinforced that corruption investigations should not be derailed on narrow technical grounds and that courts must ensure justice is served by allowing lawful probes to reach their logical conclusion.
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