VIGILANCE MANUAL VOLUME III - AP Online

256 DECISION -44
and unlimited and no limitation has been placed as to how he should
do it. He may act on a report submitted by a Police Officer or on a
private complaint or on the basis of information derived from any
source and also on his personal knowledge and suspicion.
Where the Special Judge takes cognizance of an offence
specified in section 6, issues processes and frames charges against
the accused, even though the material on which he acted was
collected in an investigation carried out by a Police Officer, who was
not authorised to do so and was done in violation of the mandatory
provisions of section 5A of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947
(corresponding to sec. 17 of P.C. Act, 1988), the action taken by the
Special Judge cannot be considered to be illegal or void. Even if the
Police Officer had no authority to carry out the investigation and to
submit a charge sheet and even if the charge sheet is regarded as
bearing the stamp of illegality, the Special Judge was not prevented
from treating it as a complaint and acting on the same. Cognizance
is not vitiated merely because there was illegality in the process of
investigation. The Special Judge can act on any material placed
before him and he need not stop to consider whether the material
placed before him has been collected in a legal way and through the
proper medium of an authorised person.
Where the Special Judge has taken cognizance and the trial
has not progressed very far, it is open to the Special Judge to redirect
reinvestigation in a proper case. Reinvestigation should not be
directed as a matter of course or routine. The court should examine
the facts of each case and then pass an appropriate order, bearing
in mind that the object is not to cure any illegality but to afford an
opportunity to the superior Police Officer to review the facts of the
case. It will always be open to the accused to plead that miscarriage
of justice has been caused by reason of the violation of the mandatory
provision on account of the first investigation having been undertaken
by an officer below the designated rank.
The act of taking cognizance is a judicial act and so long as
it has not been set aside by a proper judicial order, the cognizance
continues and the order of reinvestigation would, in no way, affect