The Supreme Court has reiterated that the High Court, while exercising jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Code, cannot interfere in the manner of investigation.

The Allahabad High Court, while disposing a petition filed by accused under Section 482 CrPC had issued a slew of directions, including the direction to change the investigating officer and also to subject the erring officers/officials named in the supplementary report to disciplinary action.

Such directions are beyond the scope of the High Court in a petition under Section 482 of the Code seeking quashing of the charge-sheet, said Justice L. Nageswara Rao and Justice Hemant Gupta. The court, in State of UP vs. Aman Mittal observed:

The directions of the High Court in proceedings under Section 482 of the Code against the interest of the accused in a petition filed by the accused are beyond the jurisdiction of the High Court and, thus, all such observations and directions are quashed.

The directions issued including in respect of change of Investigating Officer and that the District Judge to be associated with various action, falling exclusively in the domain of the Investigating Agency are patently beyond the scope of the petition under Section 482 of the Code and are, therefore, liable to be set aside.

Another issue considered in this case was whether all the offences under IPC are excluded in view of Section 3 of the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 or only the offences relating to the weights and measures as are contained in Chapter XIII IPC alone stand excluded in view of Section 51 of the Act.