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The Supreme Court today restored the charges under Karnataka Control of Organised Crimes Act (KCOCA) against accused Mohan Nayak in the Gauri Lankesh Murder case.

A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar thus set aside the impugned judgment and order dated April 22 passed by the Karnataka High Court whereby it had partly allowed the writ petition and quashed the order dated August 14, 2018 issued by the Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru City according prior approval to invoke offences under Section 3 of the   KCOCA against Nayak.  

Gauri Lankesh, a leading journalist, was shot dead by certain unknown assailants near her house at Rajarajeshwari Nagar, Bengaluru in 2017.

The Court found that the High Court had not called upon nor had it analysed the entire material collected by the Investigating Agency, which had been made part of the charge-sheet filed before the competent Court and in respect of which cognizance was also taken.

The moot question which was  answered in the appeals was about the purport of Section 24 of the 2000 Act. Section 24(1) (a), reads thus: 

“24.   Cognizance   of   and   investigation   into   an offence.­
(1)   Notwithstanding   anything   contained   in the Code, ­
(a) No information about the commission of an offence   of   organized   crime   under   this   Act   shall   be recorded by a police officer without the prior approval of the police officer not below the rank of the Deputy Inspector General of Police;
...." 

“What is crucial in this provision is the factum of recording of offence of organized crime and not of recording of a crime against an offender as such.  Further, the right question to be posed at this stage   is:   whether   prior   approval   accorded   by   the   competent authority under Section 24(1)(a) is valid?   In that, whether there was discernible information about commission of an offence of organized   crime   by known and unknown persons   as   being members   of   the   organized   crime   syndicate?  Resultantly, what needed to be enquired into by the appropriate authority (in the present case, Commissioner of Police) is: whether the factum of commission of offence of organized crime by an organized crime syndicate can be culled out from the material placed before him for grant of prior approval?  That alone is the question to be enquired into even by the Court at this stage…”, said the Bench.

The Court noted that the original FIR registered in the present case was for an ordinary crime of murder against unknown persons. And at that time the material regarding offence having been committed by an organized crime syndicate was not known. 

Which is why, the Court noted that the specific role of the concerned accused was not required to be and was not so mentioned in the stated prior approval. 

“That aspect would be unravelled during the investigation, after registration of offence of organized crime.  The High Court, thus, examined   the   matter   by   applying   erroneous   scale.     The observations made by the High Court in the impugned judgment clearly reveal that it has glossed over the core and tangible facts.”

The top court thus held that the High Court committed manifest error and exceeded its jurisdiction in quashing the charge-sheet filed before the competent Court.

At the stage of granting prior approval under Section 24(1)(a) of the 2000 Act, said the Court, the competent authority is not required to wade through the material placed by the Investigating Agency before him along with the proposal for grant of prior approval to ascertain   the   specific   role   of   each   accused but has   to   focus   essentially   on   the   factum   whether   the information/material reveals the commission of a crime which is an organized crime committed by the organized crime syndicate.

“In that, the prior approval is qua offence and not the offender as such”, the Bench said.

“As long as the incidents referred to in earlier crimes are committed by a group of persons and one common individual was involved in all the incidents, the offence under the 2000 Act can be invoked”, it added.

Cause Title: Kavitha Lankesh v State of Karnataka and Ors