HC refuses to quash case against police constable accused of negotiating ₹10-lakh bribe

A division bench of Justices A.S. Gadkari and Ranjitsinha Raja Bhonsale, while hearing the petition on December 22, said judicial interference was unwarranted at this stage, noting that “only investigation will bring out the facts”

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has refused to quash an FIR against a Pune police constable accused of negotiating a ₹10 lakh bribe on behalf of a senior police inspector, observing that sufficient material exists to warrant investigation.

Bombay High Court (HT Photo)

A division bench of Justices A.S. Gadkari and Ranjitsinha Raja Bhonsale, while hearing the petition on December 22, said judicial interference was unwarranted at this stage, noting that “only investigation will bring out the facts”.

The case arises from a September 2019 complaint against Bhanudas Annasaheb Jadhav, then a senior police inspector at Mahalunge police chowki, and others under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Indian Penal Code. The complainant, Ajit Pandurang Keswad, alleged that Jadhav demanded a bribe of ₹10 lakh to submit a favourable report in an FIR registered against him for cheating and forgery.

Keswad subsequently approached the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), which laid a trap and registered an FIR against Jadhav and others involved. Subhash Kantilal Pawar, 54, a constable attached to the same police station, was named as an accused five months later and was arrested in January 2020 for allegedly actively negotiating the bribe amount on Jadhav’s behalf.

Challenging the FIR, Pawar approached the high court in 2021, contending that no specific role had been attributed to him and that no prima facie case was made out.

Opposing the plea, additional public prosecutor Vinod Chate submitted that transcripts of recorded conversations from September 2019 revealed Pawar’s involvement in negotiating the bribe. The State informed the court that the investigation was at an advanced stage and urged dismissal of the petition.

Rejecting Pawar’s plea, the bench held that the transcripts clearly indicated his role in following up with the complainant regarding the bribe, which was later reduced from ₹10 lakh to ₹5 lakh. “Considering the material on record, one cannot conclude that the petitioner has no role or did not participate in the crime,” the court observed.

Addressing the delay in naming Pawar in the FIR, the court clarified that an FIR is merely the starting point of a criminal investigation and need not contain exhaustive details or name all accused at inception. “An FIR only sets the criminal law into motion, and an FIR can be lodged by anybody, and if required, against unknown persons. An FIR is not an encyclopaedia of the alleged crime but only a point of initiation for a long-drawn, meticulous process of investigation”, the bench clarified.

It stated that merely because the name of a particular accused is not mentioned in the FIR or that a specific role is not attributed to the accused, it cannot immediately become a ground to seek quashing of the FIR. “It is the investigation that brings out facts and allegations against the accused. In this case, the investigation has revealed a prima facie case against the petitioner, which is enough to reject the request for quashing the FIR”, the court concluded.