New Delhi: Government orders issued before the bifurcation of a state will continue to operate in successor states unless they are repealed, amended or modified, the Supreme Court held this week, reviving a batch of corruption FIRs dating back to 2016.
A bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and Satish Chandra Sharma was hearing a set of appeals by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against a decision of the Andhra Pradesh High Court that had quashed the FIRs on jurisdictional grounds.
It was argued that the FIRs could not be sustained as, following the bifurcation of the state in 2014, the Andhra Pradesh Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) unit did not have jurisdiction and thus the authority to register the cases.
The cases involve corruption allegations against public servants under the Prevention of Corruption Act, registered by the Andhra Pradesh ACB between 2016 and 2020.
In its strongly worded decision, the SC said the HC had taken a “hyper-technical approach” to the issue.
The Supreme Court did not examine the merits of the allegations in the cases, limiting itself to looking at whether the FIRs could be quashed on jurisdictional grounds after bifurcation—a move that, it noted, had led to the investigations being “nipped in the bud”.
Setting aside the judgment of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, the apex court ruled that the government’s administrative and statutory orders with the force of law do not lapse merely because a state has been reorganised.
As a result, the court restored all quashed FIRs and allowed investigations to resume in these cases. It directed that final reports be filed within six months but restrained authorities from taking coercive steps, including arrests, during the ongoing probe.
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The matter of jurisdiction
The appeals arose from a batch of FIRs registered by the Andhra Pradesh ACB between 2016 and 2020, following the bifurcation of unified Andhra Pradesh and the creation of Telangana in 2014.
The accused public servants challenged these FIRs before the HC, arguing that the ACB’s central investigation unit at Vijayawada had not been properly notified as a “police station” under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) after bifurcation.
Under the CrPC, only a notified police station has the authority to register an FIR. The absence of a fresh notification, the accused contended, rendered the registrations without jurisdiction.
Accepting this argument, the Andhra Pradesh HC had quashed the FIRs, holding that the absence of a fresh notification after bifurcation deprived the ACB unit of jurisdiction and the FIRs could not be sustained.
The Supreme Court took strong exception to this view.
“In our considered view, the approach of the high court is nothing but a travesty of justice. If, on a hyper-technical ground, the FIRs are quashed, the high court is duty-bound to lay down the law with respect to the jurisdiction that otherwise exists,” the SC noted.
It observed that years had passed without any progress on the FIRs and the HC had misapplied the law.
“In fact, in our considered view, the high court has completely misdirected itself while interpreting the law,” it observed.
Why Supreme Court disagreed
The SC held that the high court had ignored the scheme of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014. The Act split the state into Telangana and the residuary Andhra Pradesh state, as an outcome of the Telangana movement.
The Act defines “law” broadly to include not just statutes, but also government orders, notifications and circulars that had the force of law before the day of bifurcation.
Sections 100 to 102 of the Act, the apex court noted, are transitional provisions intended to ensure continuity of law and prevent a legal vacuum following reorganisation.
This means that these transitional provisions were designed to avoid a legal vacuum after the reorganisation of the states.
“On a reading of Section 100 of the 2014 Act, one can see the objective behind it. This is a transitional provision, making the application of the existing law to the two states conscious enough not to create any legal vacuum,” the SC noted.
In other words, the court said that when the state was split, existing laws and government orders were given as ones continuing to apply to both successor states unless expressly altered or repealed.
It noted that courts and authorities are expected to continue enforcing existing law even if no formal adaptation has been issued.
Based on this reasoning, the court held that a 2003 Andhra Pradesh government order declaring the Anti-Corruption Bureau offices as police stations remained valid even after bifurcation.
Another clarification issued by the state government in 2022 did not create new powers or operate retrospectively but merely explained what the law already was.
“The reasoning of the high court, that a declaration by way of a notification has to be published in the Official Gazette for due compliance… to say the least, is unacceptable. One has to see the substance and due compliance, in spirit,” the apex court said in its order.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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