CBI notice to retired Odisha High Court judge legally unsustainable: Delhi HC

New Delhi: Delhi High Court has ruled that a notice issued by CBI to retired Odisha High Court judge IM Quddusi, seeking information from him, is "legally unsustainable" because it "sought to extract information rather than secure existing documents".

Quddusi was charged of corruption in the medical college bribery case by CBI. The agency in February 2020 issued a notice to Quddusi under section 91 of CrpC, asking him to furnish details of mobile numbers used by him in 2017.

Also, Quddusi was asked to share "details of all the bank accounts, including closed accounts, with statement of account for the period May 2017 to October 2017 and details of drivers/servants employed during May 2017 to October 2017".


Aggrieved, Quddusi had petitioned the court, challenging the CBI notice. A special CBI court in April 2021 allowed Quddusi's plea and scrapped the CBI's notice. The CBI then appealed against the lower court order.

Appearing on behalf of the retired judge, advocate Ayush Jindal opposed the appeal and submitted that section 91 is a procedural provision intended only for the production of existing documents or things, and not for compelling an accused to create or compile information by recalling facts from memory.

The CBI counsel argued that the documents/information sought are nonincriminating information, often public in nature, and do not amount to conveying information based upon the personal knowledge" of the accused as would fall under the protection of Article 20(3).

Finding little force in CBI's arguments, the Delhi high court last week ruled that "section 91 is a provision for compelling the production of evidence that already exists; it is not a provision to compel an accused to create evidence or draft a memorandum of facts for the convenience of the investigating agency".

The high court in its order said that by issuing a notice under section 91 for what is essentially a questionnaire, CBI is attempting to bypass the interrogation process. "This is an attempt to convert an oral examination, subject to the accused's volition and rights, into a mandatory order for production. To treat a demand for details as a demand for a document, would be to stretch the statutory language of section 91 beyond its permissible limits," the order said.

HC ruled CBI "cannot compel the accused to prepare a sheet of facts against themselves by seeking information through a section 91 notice. If the accused is compelled to write down this information under a section 91 notice, it becomes a compelled statement. If this statement is incriminatory, it is hit by Article 20(3) (Fundamental Right against self-incrimination). If it is not incriminatory, it is still not executory, because section 91 does not mandate the creation of a document". The verdict said "it (the notice) is an endeavour to get information conveniently, without having to interrogate, which is not permissible under law".

Quddusi, against whom a charge sheet was prepared in the medical college bribery case in January 2021, was booked by the CBI in a fresh corruption case on December 4, 2019.

As previously reported by ET, CBI produced interceptions of alleged phone conversations between Quddusi and alleged middlemen and owner(s) of a Lucknow Medical Institute to substantiate its charge.