VIGILANCE MANUAL VOLUME III

236 DECISION - 32
State of Madhya Pradesh vs. Mubarak Ali,
AIR 1959 SC 707
The Supreme Court observed that in a case where an officer,
other than the designated officer, seeks to make an investigation he
should get the order of a Magistrate empowering him to do so before
he proceeds to investigate and it is desirable that the order giving the
permission should ordinarily, on the face of it, disclose the reasons
for giving the permission. For one reason or other, if the said salutary
practice is not adopted in a particular case, it is the duty of the
prosecution to establish, if that fact is denied, that the Magistrate in
fact has taken into consideration the relevant circumstances before
granting the permission to a subordinate police officer to investigate
the case. Thus where it appears that the Magistrate in granting the
permission under sec. 5A of the P.C. Act, 1947 (corresponding to
sec. 17 of the P.C.Act, 1988) did not realise the significance of his
order giving permission, but only mechanically issued the order on
the basis of the application which did not disclose any reason,
presumably because he thought that what was required was only a
formal compliance with the provisions of the section, the provisions
of sec. 5A are not complied with.
The Supreme Court further observed that under the Criminal
Procedure Code, an investigation starts after the police officer
receives information in regard to an offence and consists generally
of the steps as enumerated in the case of H.N. Rishbud vs. State of
Delhi, AIR 1955 SC 196. The Supreme Court held that on facts that
the police officer had started investigation before he obtained
permission of the Magistrate under sec. 5A and had thus contravened
its provisions.
(32)
(A) Misconduct — what constitutes, what doesn’t
(B) Misconduct — in private life
Government has the right to expect Government