CASE ANALYSIS – RHEA CHAKRABORTY V. STATE OF BIHAR

Facts of the case

• This case appeared after Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput was declared dead in his Mumbai home on 14 June 2020. A case was initially registered as an unnatural death, and with the development of facts around it, the case gained national attention soon.
• On 25 July 2020, the father of the deceased, Mr. K.K. Singh, filed an FIR at Rajiv Nagar Police Station, Patna, Bihar against Rhea Chakroborty, the girlfriend of an actor, under Sections 341, 342, 380, 406, 420, and 306 of the IPC, by filing a charge of abetment of suicide, wrongful restraint, criminal breach of trust, and others against Rhea Chakrobort
•  Mr. Singh asserted that Rhea Chakraborty had controlled and cut Sushant off, appropriated him financially, and left him with internal problems. It was reported that Rhea had assumed authority over his career life and particular choices, insulated him from his family, and separated him from the days before his demise.
• Rhea Chakraborty, a resident of Mumbai, had questioned the territorial jurisdiction of the Bihar Police as well as the maintainability of the FIR registered before the Patna Police by opposing them on the grounds that as acts concerning the alleged crime were committed in Mumbai, only the Mumbai Police had territorial jurisdiction. She petitioned the Supreme Court on the grounds of Article 32. She was interested in a transfer of the investigation by the Bihar Police to the Mumbai Police and a stay on the current investigation.
• The State of Bihar and the family of Sushant Ahmed opposed such transfer as per them, Bihar Police would have jurisdiction under sections 177 and 178 of CrPC because the impact of the offence was on members of his family, living in Patna. They claimed Mumbai Police have not registered an FIR despite more than a month after the initial investigation.
• There was also the involvement of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) because the State of Bihar had also suggested a CBI investigation. The Union of India agreed to the suggestion and it led to more legal concerns regarding the extent of the powers of the CBI without the consent of Maharashtra.
• The gist of the factual contentions was based on the nature of territorial jurisdiction, validity of the FIR, and proper investigational jurisdiction, which was vital to deciding whether the matter had to be stayed in the Bihar Police/ CBI or be referred to the Mumbai Police.

Issues of the case

The legal considerations of the case presented in the Supreme Court included a number of questions that were triggered by the factual and procedural complexities of the case. The most important issues were cast in the following way:

1. Whether the Patna Police may have territorial Jurisdiction to enter an FIR under section 154 of the CrPC, knowing that the alleged offences were mostly in Mumbai.

• This issue that was considered by the court was whether the acts that constituted mental harassment, misappropriation of funds, and aiding suicide, which the accused had been charged with, possessed a sufficient nexus with Bihar to make it possible to inquire a criminal case against the accused under the laws of Bihar.

2. The validity of handing the disquisition over to the Central Bureau of Investigation( CBI) as opposed to the Bihar Police without the go-ahead of Maharashtra.

• Because the state under discussion was that of Maharashtra, where the crime was allegedly committed, the question raised was whether Bihar could offer a CBI investigation effectively and whether the central government could accept the disquisition without the concurrence of the state of Maharashtra.

3. Whether the FIR registered at Patna could be transferred to Mumbai in favour of Rhea Chakraborty, considering her writ submitted under Composition 32 of the Constitution.

• The Court needed to ascertain whether the petitioner was entitled to say that the Bihar FIR is case-filed without jurisdiction, and the investigation could be transferred in the name of justice and fair treatment.

4. Could the enquiry undertaken by the Mumbai Police be termed as a full-fledged investigation under the CrPC?

• The character of actions of Mumbai Police, which is restricted to some inquiry under S. 174 CrPC, was also looked into, to see whether it constituted a legal investigation so as to exclude the action of Bihar Police.

Judgment

• The Supreme Court gave validity to the FIR registered at Patna and the Court held that under Sections 177 and 178 of the CrPC, the Bihar Police had the jurisdiction to register the FIR since part of the cause of action- e.g. fiscal and internal torture suffered by the family had some correlation to Bihar.
• The Court stated that an operation by Rhea Chakraborty under Art. 32 seeking transfer of disquisition to Mumbai wasn’t justifiable as a FIR by the Patna Police was justified, and the equity of the CBIs as far as the disquisition was concerned wasn’t in doubt.
• It was also held that transfer of the investigation to CBI was to be done legally and the consent of the State of Maharashtra was not necessary, as FIR was lodged in Bihar and the central government had accepted the demand of CBI investigation under Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946.
• The Court made it clear that the Mumbai Police had merely carried out an inquiry as per Section 174 of the CrPC, but that was not an investigation in the legal sense of the word. The Patna Police was thus well placed to conduct a felonious disquisition after the FIR.
• Hence, the investor was ordered by the Court to hand over the investigation to CBI so as to have a fair and efficient investigation, bearing in mind the sensitivity and national interest attached to the case.
• The Court rejected the plea of Rhea Chakraborty and gave a go-ahead to the CBI to do with the disquisition, where it was in the position left by the Bihar Police.

Final decision: The validity of the Patna FIR was upheld by the Supreme Court, and it also established the jurisdiction of the CBI to conduct an investigation in the case. It denied the request for a change of venue and stressed that a fair, impartial, and transparent investigation must be conducted to see that justice is administered without any political influence.

Reasoning

• The Supreme Court started with the territorial jurisdiction as prescribed in Section 177 and Section 178 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). It made it easier to understand that where the offence is one covered by a complex set of data or grounded in further than one governance, an FIR may be registered in a place where some part of the cause of action passed. The Patna Police was quite right in charging the FIR because the family of Sushant Singh Rajput, who resided in Bihar, was affected by the repercussions of the crime in question.
• Regarding Mumbai Police conduct of the investigation, the Court noted that the Mumbai Police was only to conduct an inquiry under Section 174 CrPC, which can only be conducted on those cases which have un-natural deaths. The Court stressed that these kinds of investigations lack the quality of the official investigation and they cannot preclude a criminal case initiated by another competent body.
• When dealing with the issue of the validity of the inclusion of CBI, the Court turned to Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, which enabled a State Government to order a CBI investigation. The Union of India had also accepted the Bihar recommendation properly, and, hence, the consent of Maharashtra was not required in this case.
• The Court denied the application by Rhea Chakraborty to transfer the case to Mumbai by pointing out that the fear of bias is not enough to change the ruling jurisdiction when police in Bihar and the CBI were working within the court of law.
• The Court also emphasised the public interest and necessity of a credible investigation as well as the national significance of preserving public trust in the criminal justice system.

The Court therefore did procedural law properly and gave consideration to federal interests as well as the principle of fairness and transparency in the exercise of the power of the CBI.

Reference

• Rhea Chakraborty v State of Bihar, (2020) SCC OnLine SC 656.
• Code of Criminal Procedure 1973, ss 154, 177, 178, 174.
• Delhi Special Police Establishment Act 1946, s 6.
• State of Karnataka v Adbulla, (1983) 4 SCC 492.
• Navinchandra N Majithia v State of Meghalaya, (2000) 8 SCC 323.
• Lalita Kumari v Government of Uttar Pradesh, (2014) 2 SCC 1.
• Constitution of India 1950, art 32.
• Law Commission of India, Report No 239: Expeditious Investigation and Trial of Criminal Cases Against Influential Public Personalities (2012).
• P Ramanatha Aiyar, The Major Law Lexicon (4th edn, LexisNexis 2010).
• Dr Kailash Rai, Criminal Procedure (17th edn, Central Law Publication 2021) 242–245.

(This article is written by Tanusri Santra, a 2nd-year student of the Department of Law, Calcutta University, during her internship at Legal Vidhya)

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Karan Chhetri

‘Social Media Head’ and ‘Case Analyst’ of Legal Vidhiya.