PIL 58/2010 BEFORE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE AMITAVA ROY HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE H. BARUAH The present proceeding records a prayer for a writ of mandamus a nd/or an appropriate direction to the State respondents herein to entrust the in vestigation of the case being First Information Report No. 36(3)/2010 of the Lam lai P.S., Imphal East, Manipur, under section 326 Indian Penal Code 1860 and 25( 1-C) of Arms Act, 1959, to the Central Bureau of Investigation, New Delhi, (for short hereafter referred to as the CBI) and to submit a charge sheet on the comp letion thereof. 2. We have heard Mr. B. Das, learned Counsel for the petitioners an d Mr. N.P. Singh, Sr. Advocate, for the State respondents. As at the motion stag e the maintainability of the instant proceeding has been questioned on behalf of the State respondents, the parties present have been heard on this prefatory fa cet. 3. The abridged versions from the rival pleadings available would p ortray the contour of the adjudication. The petitioners’ claim to be students of law in a local institution at Imphal in the State of Manipur and have introduce d themselves as socially spirited individuals committed to the espousal of publi c causes and social justice. Their crusade herein is directed against alleged de liberate inaction on the part of the State police in investigating the aforement ioned case involving the incident in which Mr. N. Kotiswar Singh, Advocate Gener al, Manipur, had suffered a bullet injury on 6/3/2010 at about 7 to 8 P.M. near Sawombung Kabui village when he was travelling in a car along with Mr. K. Ranjit Singh, Works Minister, Manipur and Mr. D.D. Thaisii, Tribal Development Ministe r, Manipur, on their way back from the seed sowing festival of the Tangkhuls at Hunphung village, Ukhrul District of the State. According to the petitioners, it is learnt that there was a hot exchange of words prior to the incident between the injured and the two aforesaid Ministers inside the car whereafter he (injure d) was shot at with an attempt to murder him. 4. Though the Officer-in-Charge, Lamlai Police Station, Imphal East , Manipur, registered First Information Report No. 36(3)/2010 under the aforemen tioned provisions of law in connection with the incident, the petitioners have a lleged that the names of the accused persons were intentionally withheld on the pressure of the higher ups in the administration. Referring to the newspaper rep orts dated 8/3/2010, 9/3/2010 and 10/3/2010 in the dailies Telegraph and Sang ai Express , the petitioners have averred that though the Chief Minister of the State informed the media that the incident was of accidental firing from the lic enced gun of one of the two Ministers travelling with the injured, the name of t he assailant was not disclosed. Public uproar condemning the incident and demand ing the disclosure of the name of the said Minister and appropriate legal action against him was also mentioned. Insistences by the legal fraternity represented by the Bar Associations referred to in the newspaper reports for handing over t he investigation to the CBI has also been referred to. 5. The petitioners have further stated that on 11/3/2010 though the mother of the injured had submitted a report with the Superintendent of Police, Imphal East, to take necessary legal action against the culprit/culprits and to punish them in accordance with law, no step has been taken thereon. Newspaper r eports dated 11/3/2010 and 12/3/2010 in the aforementioned dailies have also bee n relied upon to aver that meanwhile the statements of the two Ministers had bee n recorded and that the accidental firing had occurred from the fire arm of the Works Minister, Mr. K. Ranjit Singh and that the FIR case had been registered fo r investigation. The assurance of the Chief Minister of the State on the floor o f the Assembly to mete out penalty in law to the said Minister in the event of a ny malafide intention on his part has also been stated. 6. The petitioners have expressed their concern that though almost two months had passed, the offence notwithstanding being a cognizable one, the S tate police have not arrested any accused in connection with the FIR case being influenced and pressurised by the influential quarters of the State administrati on. Being apprehensive that the State police would desist from investigating the FIR case in the manner required in law due to the involvement of two Cabinet Mi nisters of the State, they have approached this Court for an appropriate writ or direction as alluded hereinabove. 7. The respondents 3, 4 and 5 in their joint affidavit have at the threshold challenged the maintainability of the instant petition as a public int erest litigation contending inter alia that the same does not come within the am bit of the guidelines enumerated by the Hon’ble Supreme Court and adopted by thi s Court in such matters. According to them, the petitioners have no locus standi to institute the present proceeding in that form or even otherwise. They have d ismissed the apprehension of the petitioners as unfounded being based on newspap er reports which are inadmissible in law as evidence. They have categorically de nied the imputation that the State police has failed to discharge its statutory function and duties in the investigation of the FIR case and have asserted that the disclosures in connection therewith overwhelmingly establish that the unfort unate incident was purely an accident without any dishonest intention and mens r ea. The receipt of the report by the mother of the injured though admitted, acco rding to the answering respondents, the same was under public pressure. They hav e however pleaded that no separate FIR had been registered thereon as investigat ion in connection with the above mentioned FIR case had been in progress then. T he respondents have averred that the two Ministers travelling with the injured h ad extended their full cooperation in the investigation and that not only they h ad laid bare all relevant facts there is neither any possibility nor any apprehe nsion of their abscondence. The respondents have therefore asserted that not onl y the State police has the sufficient expertise, infrastructure and commitment t o investigate the case in the discharge of its statutory function, the facts and circumstances do not justify the entrustment of the probe to the CBI as prayed for. 8. In their affidavit in reply, the petitioners while generally rei terating their averments in the writ petition have vouched for the maintainabili ty thereof as a PIL and their locus standi. They have denied that the incident w as purely an accident and that it was not spurred by dishonest intention or mens rea. 9. Mr. Das has assiduously argued with reference to the guidelines adopted by this Court for identifying the subject matters of public interest lit igation that not only the issue involved herein is squarely covered thereby, the newspaper reports on which the petitioners rely provide unimpeachable foundatio n of their apprehension and belief and that therefore the instant petition ought to be scrutinised on merits. As the offence involved is a crime against the soc iety as a whole, in the face of the overwhelming possibility of the investigatin g agency being deactivised by the lingering awe of the high dignitaries involved , it is a fit case that the matter be entrusted to the CBI, he urged. While cont ending that the petitioners as the students of law and imbued with the spirit of social service can well maintain the instant proceeding, the learned Counsel ha s urged that the inaction of the State police being apparent amongst others for their omission to arrest the offender inspite of a long lapse of time or to act on the complaint lodged by the mother of the victim, to ensure a dispassionate a nd meaningful investigation into the incident, the same ought to be entrusted to the CBI, he pleaded. To bolster his arguments, the learned Counsel has placed r eliance on the decisions of the Apex Court in Bodhisattwa Gautam versus Subhra C hakraborty (MS), (1996) 1SCC 490, (2000) 2 SCC 465, Mohd. Aslam Alias Bhure vers us Union of India and others, (2003) 4 SCC 1, Rubabbuddin Sheikh versus State of Gujarat and others, (2010) 2 SCC 200. 10. Mr. Singh as against this has persuasively insisted that the ins tant petition being bereft of the quintessence of a public interest litigation, it ought to be rejected in limine. According to him, as the injured suffers neit her from any disadvantage or disability to seek the enforcement of his legal and /or constitutional right if perceived to have been infringed in the incident, in absence of any remonstrance by him about the quality and credibility of the inv estigation, the petitioners have no locus to approach this Court to purportedly espouse their secondary interest in the garb of a PIL. The learned Sr. Counsel h as further urged that having regard to the framework of the instant petition, th e indictments made and the reliefs sought for, nonjoinder of the injured, the Mi nisters concerned and the Chief Minister of the State has rendered the instant p etition not maintainable in law on the face of the records. Mr. Singh to buttres s his arguments has placed his reliance in the decisions of the Apex Court in S. P. Gupta versus Union of India and another, 1981 Supp SCC 87, M/s Holicow Pictur es Pvt. Ltd. versus Prem Chandra Mishra and others, AIR 2008 SC 913 and of this Court in Chairman, Railway Board and others versus Chandrima Das (Mrs) and other s, 1997 (3) GLT 213. 11. We have lent our anxious consideration to the pleadings of the p arties and the competing arguments advanced. To begin with, we do not feel impre ssed with the plea that the cause of action of the instant petition is beyond th e ken of the guidelines formulated for entertaining a petition as public interes t litigation in the face of the category No. 8 in the guidelines which comprehen ds a petition relating to matters of public importance other than those specific ally mentioned therein. Having regard to the gravity of the incident and the ser iousness of the charge levelled, we do not feel inclined to non-suit the petitio ners on this count. 12. On the aspect of locus, the petitioners’ reliance is on the deci sion of the Apex Court in Bodhisattwa Gautam (supra), wherein their Lordships ha ve observed that for the exercise of jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Consti tution of India, it is not necessary that the person who is the victim of violat ion of the fundamental rights should personally approach the Court as it can its elf take cognizance of the matter and proceed suo motu or on a petition of any p ublic spirited individual. 13. That a public law remedy in addition to one under the private la w is available in situations of violations of fundamental rights or enforcement of public duties where public functionaries are involved as enunciated by the Ap ex Court in Chairman, Railway Board versus Chandrima Das (supra), has been press ed into service as well. 14. In S.P. Gupta, supra, while dwelling on the aspect of locus stan di in the context of the jurisprudence of public interest litigation their Lords hips observed has hereunder in paragraph 25 of the rendering therein:- Before we part with this general discussion in regard to locus standi, there is one point we would like to emphasise and it is, that cases may arise where there is undoubtedly public injury by the act or omission of the State or a public au thority but such act or omission also causes a specific legal injury to an indiv idual or to a specific class or group of individuals. In such cases, a member of the public having sufficient interest can certainly maintain an action challeng ing the legality of such act or omission, but if the person or specific class or group of persons who are primarily injured as a result of such act or omission, do not wish to claim any relief and accept such act or omission willingly and w ithout protest, the member of the public who complains of a secondary public inj ury cannot maintain the action, for the effect of entertaining the action at the instance of such member of the public would be to foist a relief on the person or specific class or group of persons primarily injured, which they do not want. It was thus in essence underlined that whereas a member of the p ublic having sufficient interest can maintain an action challenging the legality of any act or omission, if the person or specific class or group of person who are primarily injured as a result thereof forebear to claim any relief and accep t such act or omission willingly and without any protest, the challenge of a mem ber of the public who complains of a secondary public injury cannot be maintaine d as the effect of entertaining the same at his/her instance would be to impose a relief on one or those primarily injured which, he/she/they do not desire. 15. This view of the seven Judge Bench of the Apex Court has held sw ay in this regard progressive relaxation in the traditional concept of locus sta ndi vis-à-vis public interest litigation notwithstanding. This view finds reiter ation in the Joint Action Committee, Imphal, supra, by this Court. 16. Their Lordships of the Apex Court reiterated their concern again st the burgeoning volume of public interest litigation uninformed with any genui ne urge for public or social welfare and essentially propelled by factors and co nsiderations divorced from the authentic anxiety to espouse the cause of the dep rived and the disadvantaged rendering them disabled to individually or collectiv ely seek the panacean intervention of the judicial process. Their Lordships also disapproved endeavours to initiate public interest litigation on the basis of n ewspaper reports sans any attempt to verify credibility thereof which otherwise do not constitute evidence. It was held that the petition based on unconfirmed n ews report ought not to be entertained. 17. The petitioners’ effort to maintain the petition based on such r eports by placing reliance on Md. Aslam versus Union of India and others (supra) thus seems to be lacking in persuasion. The observations of their Lordships tha t once a notice is issued on the basis of letters, telegrams, post cards or news paper reports treating those as writ petitions, the Courts should eschew a tech nical or a narrow approach in matters involving public interest is of no signifi cance in favour of the petitioners having regard to the stage of the instant pro ceeding. 18. Noticeably in the present proceeding, neither the injured nor th e Ministers concerned have been impleaded. The categorical assertions of the ans wering respondents bearing on the investigation and the revelations in course th ereof establishing that the incident was an accident simpliciter with no dishone st intention or mens rea of any one then present have remained unscathed in abse nce of excision thereof by convincing and determinative refutation of the same. The averment on oath that the Ministers concerned have cooperated with the inves tigation made, their statements about the incident have been rendered and that t here is neither any possibility nor any apprehension of their fleeing from justi ce has also remained uncontroverted to be dismissed as sheer fluff lacking subst ance. The newspaper reports relied upon by the petitioners inter alia reveal tha t the Chief Minister of the State had disclosed the name of the Minister whose g un got fired with the assurance of legal action against him on proved malafides. In this background the absence of arrest of any person in the FIR case per se w ould not be an unimpeachable index of the failure or ineptitude of the investiga ting agency or a motivated inaction on its part to shield any person guilty of a n offence under the sections of law on which the case had been registered. An ir resistible conclusion of the investigating agency’s failure to discharge its sta tutory and public duty on collateral factors as alleged by the petitioners, acti ng on the materials available is thus not possible. Their apprehension based on the newspaper reports in the facts and circumstances of the case as well as on t he touchstone of the rival pleadings is considered inadequate to entertain the i nstant petition. 19. Though in a given fact situation as in Rubabbuddin Sheikh (supra ), in which with reference to the involvement of the police officials of the Sta te in the crime under investigation it was considered appropriate to entrust the probe to the CBI, the facts as obtained in the instant case are neither akin th ereto nor proclaim any reliable basis to entertain the apprehension as expressed by the petitioners. In the face of unequivocal and categorical averments made b y the respondents 3, 4 and 5 in charge of the investigation of the FIR case as a bove, we are of the firm view that the instant proceeding ought not to be furthe red. The State respondents however are expected to ensure that the investigation in the case is taken to its logical end in accordance with law. The petition in the face of the above determination is dismissed . No costs.