MORE THAN three years after senior Indian Trade Service (ITS) officer and the then Joint Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Jawri Mal Bishnoi, died after falling from a fourth-floor window of the CBI office in Rajkot, the Gujarat High Court (HC) has ordered registration of an FIR into the circumstances of his death, holding that the material on record disclosed a possible cognizable offence that warranted a criminal investigation.Justice M K Thakker of the Gujarat HC directed that the FIR be registered against an unidentified person and ordered that the investigation be conducted independently under the supervision of the DIG, CID Crime. It has given the investigating authorities three months to complete the probe and submit a report to the High Court Registry.The HC, in its order of September 28, observed that the police had been informed about allegations concerning Bishnoi’s death in custody but had not registered an FIR. The order states, “despite a cognizable offence having been disclosed to the police… instead of registering the FIR, the police authority satisfied itself by conducting an inquiry treating the incident as an accidental death.”The HC said the judicial inquiry could not bring the matter to an end and said, “Merely because the judicial inquiry has concluded in favour of the police officers, the police cannot be precluded from investigating the matter if the facts otherwise disclose the commission of a cognizable offence…”The court made it clear that a judicial inquiry into a custodial death cannot substitute for a criminal investigation. “Such an inquiry cannot be treated as a substitute for an investigation conducted by the police in respect of the commission of an offence,” the court order said.The court further held that even if an investigation ultimately finds that no offence was committed, the investigating officer must reach that conclusion through the statutory investigation process and submit an appropriate final report to the magistrate. A judicial inquiry cannot prevent that process where the material discloses a cognizable offence.The court noted that a person aggrieved by the non-registration of an FIR has remedies before senior police officers or a magistrate. But it said the case involved a custodial death and therefore warranted a different approach and “the stand that is required to be taken by this court should be different,” the order states.The caseStory continues below this adBishnoi, a 2011-batch Indian Trade Service (ITS) officer and Joint Director General of Foreign Trade at Rajkot, was arrested by the CBI’s Anti-Corruption Bureau on March 24, 2023, after a businessman alleged that he had demanded Rs 9 lakh in connection with official work and a licence. The CBI laid a trap that afternoon and alleged that Bishnoi accepted Rs 5 lakh in his chamber. The cash was allegedly recovered from a drawer and his right-hand wash allegedly tested positive. He was formally arrested around 6:45 pm on the day and his mobile phones were seized.Bishnoi remained at the CBI office overnight. The next morning, while preparations were being made to take him to Gandhinagar, he allegedly jumped from a window of the fourth-floor chamber around 9.45 am. He was taken to Civil Hospital, where doctors declared him dead. Police registered the death as an accidental death case and the CBI also sought a judicial inquiry into the circumstances of his death.Bishnoi’s family disputed the account and his son approached the Chief Judicial Magistrate, alleging, among other offences, murder and extortion. The family also alleged that CBI officials had threatened them during a search of their residence and sought a forensic examination of a mobile phone on which they claimed a relevant conversation had been recorded.An SIT subsequently investigated the death. It found that CBI officials had not taken proper care during the post-trap proceedings, but concluded that they were not involved in Bishnoi’s suicide. A separate judicial inquiry, which examined 29 witnesses, also concluded that the CBI officers had neither harmed nor injured Bishnoi and had acted in accordance with the rules.Story continues below this adThe family then moved the HC, questioning why Bishnoi had remained at the CBI office for nearly 19 hours after his arrest instead of being produced before a magistrate. It also relied on the post-mortem report, which recorded multiple injuries and fractures and attributed his death to shock and haemorrhage caused by injuries to the head and chest.The CBI disputed the allegations and maintained that Bishnoi had been caught accepting the bribe in the presence of independent witnesses. It also relied on CCTV footage in support of its account that he had jumped from the fourth-floor window. The state said the police and judicial inquiries had found no harassment or torture by CBI officials. It opposed reopening the matter through an FIR, but said that if the court ordered one, it should be registered against unidentified persons rather than naming individual CBI officials at this stage.