HC not satisfied with SOPs prepared by Punjab, Chandigarh for bank fraud related cases

Read Order: Gurwinder Singh v. State Of Punjab And Another

Vivek Gupta

Chandigarh, August 9, 2021: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has expressed its dissatisfaction over the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) prepared by the State of Punjab and the Union Territory of Chandigarh for bank fraud related investigations. 

“The Director General of Police, Punjab, Haryana and U.T. Chandigarh respectively are directed to evolve appropriate supervisory mechanism for implementation of the SOPs and also review and modification of the same,” stated the bench of Justice Arun Kumar Tyagi in view of increase in bank fraud cases. 

The bench also stated that the Directors General of Police (DGPs) of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh respectively may also, if so desired, direct the concerned committees or officers to have a joint meeting and prepare the concise SOP with common content and specific directions and checklist for the Investigating Officers. 

The bench passed these directions after it found that its last order for the preparation and circulation of SOPs within three months was not met with the right spirit. 

It observed that “the tone, tenure and purport of the order have not been understood in the right perspective by the special committee constituted by the Director General of Police, Punjab as the SOP prepared by the committee runs into about 300 pages”.

“It appears that the said SOP has been prepared by compiling and adding to contents copied from various reports/documents available on the internet and the same is definitely valuable informative document but it is difficult to understand how an Investigating Officer deputed to investigate the financial and bank frauds would be able to remember salient procedural aspects of the SOP for compliance during such investigation,” noted the bench. 

The bench observed that the SOP for investigation of designated category of criminal cases prepared earlier in the State of Punjab and also in neighbouring States including National Capital Territory of Delhi do not run into such length of pages.

“So the SOP prepared by the special committee constituted by the Director General of Police, Punjab in bank fraud cases will not be a quick handy guiding tool for the Investigating Officers at the time of investigation of the cases for requisite compliance. 

“Therefore, the Director General of Police, Punjab is directed to refer to SOPs prepared and circulated by the Director General of Police, Haryana and the Director General of Police, U.T., Chandigarh or such similar SOPs issued by the Director General of Police of neighbouring States and direct the specially constituted committee to prepare SOP with checklist for the Investigating Officers and circulate the same,” it said. 

The bench further observed that as far as the SOP prepared by the Director General of Police, U.T., Chandigarh is concerned, undue emphasis has been placed on investigation of the role of the officers/officials of the bank by the Investigating Officers.

The compliance with the guidelines issued by the RBI and the policies adopted by the banks are generally covered by internal departmental proceedings, internal audit reports of the concerned banks and, therefore, investigation in this regard will be wastage of the valuable time of the Investigating Officers, the HC observed. 

It will also shift focus and divert the attention to secondary matters instead of focusing and paying attention to the primary matter of investigation into offences of fraud/forgery and collecting valuable evidence in respect thereof, the HC said. 

“Therefore, the Director General of Police, U.T., Chandigarh is also directed to take appropriate action for review and modification of the SOP prepared,” stated the bench.