Can a criminal case be reopened

Can a criminal case be reopened

There is independence of Judiciary, Executive and legislature.

The police comes under executive category.

It is the job of police to register a criminal case and investigate. The courts can not interfere in that. There are supreme court judgments on that. Court can at best monitor an investigation. Give directions to cover certain points. This is collaborative role. Nothing beyond.

A closure report is submitted to the court by police in cases where police thinks that a case is not made out based on its investigation. The acceptance of the closure report by court is not a substantive law. It is just a supervisory role of the judiciary to ensure that the cases are not closed due to work pressure on the IO or corruption of the IO by opposite party.

The acceptance of a closure report is not a judgment by the court. Only a judgment by a court needs the permission or appeal to higher court to go against the judgment.

In the case of reopening of the case by police for investigation by the police, the court has no role to play unless a writ petition is filed before the court.

In the case of Arnab Goswami’s arrest there is nothing wrong in the case the police wants to reopen the case.

There is no section in Cr.P.C. which covers the case of reopening of a criminal case.

Any interference of the court in reopening of the case will be against the independence of the three pillars of constitution.

The power of the court is limited to granting of bail in case of unjust arrest of an accused.

The court seems to have chosen a wrong approach. Instead of granting bail the court has chosen to keep the case open and sent the accused to judicial custody.

The observations of the court that the police was not empowered to reopen the case without permission of the court indicates that there is some thing more than is in the public domain.