Vijayawada ACB: No Police Station Needed After AP Bifurcation
the Supreme Court set aside a judgment of the Andhra Pradesh High Court which had quashed a batch of FIRs registered by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on the ground of lack of jurisdiction, holding that the High Court adopted an impermissibly hyper-technical approach that resulted in serious miscarriage of justice.
A Bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and Satish Chandra Sharma allowed the appeals filed by the Joint Director, Rayalaseema, ACB and others, restoring the FIRs relating to offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and permitting continuation of investigations across the State.
The Court held that the High Court erred in concluding that the ACB’s Central Investigation Unit at Vijayawada was not a “police station” within the meaning of Section 2(s) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, merely as a specific notification had not been issued post-bifurcation of the State.
The Supreme Court held that once the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014 created a legal fiction allowing courts to interpret existing laws as continuing to apply to successor States even without formal adaptation, the High Court was wrong to insist on a seperate notification declaring Vijayawada as a police station. Also, there was a 2022 Government order which clarified that the Vijayawada ACB office was the authorised police station for registering corruption-related FIRs in Andhra Pradesh.
The case concerned FIRs registered by the ACB’s Central Investigation Unit in Vijayawada between 2016 and 2020 under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The accused challenged them before the Andhra Pradesh High Court, claiming the Vijayawada CIU was not a notified police station under Section 2(s) CrPC.
They relied on a 2003 government order that had declared the ACB CIU in Hyderabad as a police station for the undivided State. After the 2014 bifurcation and the shifting of the ACB headquarters from Hyderabad to Vijayawada, the accused argued that a fresh notification was required. Accepting this plea, the High Court quashed the FIRs, prompting the ACB to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Interpreting Sections 100 to 102 of the 2014 Reorganisation Act, the Judgment authored by justice Sundresh held that all existing laws, notifications, and executive instruments of the undivided State continued to operate in both successor States unless expressly repealed or modified. The relocation of the CIU office from Hyderabad to Vijayawada following bifurcation was a functional and administrative shift, not the creation of a new entity requiring a fresh notification.
“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 of Section 2(s) of the CrPC,1973,is,to say the least,unacceptable. One has to see the substance and due compliance, in spirit. Similarly, the finding, that the subsequent clarificatory Government Order of 2022 will not have an effect on the FIRs registered, is totally untenable and against the basic canons of law. In our considered view, the High Court took undue pains to ensure that the FIRs are quashed.When a Government Order is issued by way of a clarification,there is no question of any retrospective application.