Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The Madhya Pradesh High Court has quashed a supplementary chargesheet filed in a 2004 alleged rape case, holding that an investigating agency cannot simply receive documents from a complainant and forward them to court in the name of “further investigation”.
Justice Jai Kumar Pillai passed the order on Wednesday while allowing a petition filed by Sunil Kothari, who had challenged a Special Judge (OAW), Indore order permitting 43 additional documents to be taken on record.
The case stems from an FIR registered in March 2021 over an alleged rape in December 2004. The complainant alleged that the accused, posing as “Sanjay Kothari”, offered her a job in Indore and later raped her at an office. She said fear and concern over social reputation delayed her complaint.
The High Court examined the manner in which 43 additional documents were brought on record. An earlier trial court order allowing them had been set aside by the HC in September 2024, with liberty to follow the procedure of further investigation under Section 173(8) of the CrPC.
The investigating agency later seized the documents from the complainant on January 25, 2025, recorded her supplementary statement the same day and filed a supplementary chargesheet two days later.
The HC found that the documents, including purported official communications and earlier complaints, had not been independently verified.
“Merely receiving documents from the hands of the complainant and forwarding them to the court through a supplementary charge-sheet within 48 hours does not satisfy the statutory requirements of a ‘further investigation’,” the court observed.
It said genuine further investigation requires an independent inquiry and that the investigating agency cannot act merely as a “post office” for the complainant.
The court quashed the special judge’s January 9, 2025 order and the supplementary chargesheet filed pursuant to it.
