Calcutta High Court: In a criminal revisional application filed under Section 482 read with Sections 395/397, Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (CrPC) by the de facto complainant, challenging the rejection of his protest (na-raji) petition and the acceptance of a Final Report True, No Clue (FRT), Uday Kumar, J., set aside the order of the Special Court and held that the acceptance of a “Nil/No clue” report could not be sustained where the investigation had failed to adequately pursue available digital evidence. The Court further held that the fact that the complainant had instituted other special cases could not constitute a legal basis to discredit a distinct subsequent complaint alleging casteist insults through social media.
Brief Facts
The petitioner, who belonged to the Scheduled Caste community, lodged a written complaint on 21 September 2022 alleging that the accused persons belonging to the general caste, had hurled foul, unparliamentary and casteist expletives targeting his caste identity, religion, God and family through Facebook. The petitioner enclosed digital screenshots of the alleged posts. The complaint resulted in Behala Police Station Case No. 274 dated 17 October 2022 under Section 3(1)(r)/(s), Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC/ST Act), which was subsequently renumbered as Special Case No. 89 of 2022.
During investigation, the investigating officer recorded the petitioner’s statement under Section 164 CrPC, statements of independent witnesses under Section 161 CrPC and prepared a seizure list concerning the digital links and screenshots. However, on 20 January 2023, the police submitted a Final Report True, No Clue, stating that assistance sought from Facebook through the Cyber Police Station, Kolkata, had not yielded the actual user particulars. The petitioner thereafter filed a na-raji/ protest petition on 14 February 2023.
The Special Court vide order dated 27 June 2023, rejected the na-raji petition and accepted the FRT. The Special Court held that charge-sheets had been filed in 3 other special cases instituted by the same complainant and held that, in view of the “Nil” charge-sheet/FRT submitted after investigation, no cogent reason had been made out to nullify the FRT and order re-investigation.
Contentions
The petitioner challenged the order, contending that the existence of other complaints could not be used as a negative filter to assess a separate atrocity complaint. It was further submitted that the FIR, Section 164 statement and seized digital evidence disclosed prima facie ingredients under Section 3(1)(r)/(s), SC/ST Act and that the inability of the local cyber cell to obtain information from the social media intermediary could not justify a perfunctory closure of the investigation.
The State defended the impugned order, submitting that the investigation had been duly conducted and that, upon failure to trace the user ID particulars through cyber channels, the true closure report had rightly been submitted. Reliance was placed on K. Vadivel v. V. Shanthi, (2024) 19 SCC 382, to contend that further investigation under Section 173(8) CrPC should be ordered cautiously and only in exceptional circumstances.
Observations and Held
The Court observed that upon submission of a final report, the Magistrate or Special Judge is required to independently evaluate the protest/na-raji petition on its merits and ascertain whether cognizable material had been overlooked or whether the investigation was perfunctory, relying on Bhagwant Singh v. Commr. of Police, (1985) 2 SCC 537.
The Court found fault with the reasoning that, because the complainant had instituted 3 other special cases in which charge-sheets had been filed, the “Nil” report in the present case should be accepted. It held that every distinct criminal transaction and occurrence has to be examined on its own foundational worth and evidentiary matrix and that prior or parallel complaints in separate transactions could not constitute a legal basis to presume lack of merit in a distinct subsequent grievance of casteist insult through digital media.
The Court further noted that, for the purposes of Section 3(1)(r)/(s), SC/ST Act, the requirement of public view extends into the digital domain. It observed that where electronic screenshots and links had been formally seized and corroborated by a Section 164 statement, the investigating agency could not report “no clue” merely because a local cyber inquiry had failed to obtain information from Facebook/Meta without exhausting specialised cyber-forensic avenues.
The Court held that the decision in K. Vadivel relied upon by the State was factually distinguishable and was not apposite to the present revisional application.
Thus, the Court set aside the order dated 27 June 2023, quashed the acceptance of the FRT and the dropping of Special Case No. 89 of 2022, and remanded the matter to the Special Court, Alipore. It directed that further investigation in the case be conducted under the direct supervision of the Deputy Commissioner of Police (South-West Division/Specialised Cyber Cell supervisory tier, Kolkata Police), with specialised cyber-forensic personnel tasked with tracing the digital footprints and profile logs of the offending posts. The police report under Section 173(8) CrPC was directed to be submitted before the jurisdictional Special Court within 3 months from communication of the order.
[Sayan Mondal v. State of W.B., CRR 2992 of 2023, decided on 25-9-2026]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Mr. Shayan Sachin Basu, Adv.
For the State: Dr. Achin Jana, Ms. Kritika Jain.