Supreme Court stays Kerala High Court order quashing FIR against former DGP Jacob Thomas in corruption case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed a Kerala High Court judgment that had quashed a first information report (FIR) against Dr Jacob Thomas, former Director General of Police (DGP), in a corruption case. [Sathyan Naravoor v Dr. Jacob Thomas IPS]..A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Sanjay Karol clarified that the stay was granted only to facilitate the investigation, and asked Thomas to cooperate with the probe..The top court was hearing two petitions against the Kerala High Court ruling in question. It had issued notice to Thomas in the matter returnable in February last year, on an appeal moved by Sathyan Naravoor, the complainant at whose instance the FIR was originally registered.Interestingly, the Supreme Court had earlier asked why the State had not filed an appeal against the High Court verdict.Subsequently, the State too filed a plea, on which notice was issued by the apex court in May last year.The High Court order under challenge had quashed an FIR registered by the Special Investigation Unit of the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau against the high-ranking IPS official, who was accused of abusing his position and reaping financial gains at the expense of the government exchequer.Thomas has been charged under Section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.The appeal stated that the High Court committed a grave error by putting an end to the investigation that was underway when there were serious allegations of financial misappropriation against Thomas.It was the original complainant's submission that the FIR had been filed after a preliminary inquiry that was conducted by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau.It was emphasised that this was not an isolated case of abuse of power by Thomas. Rather, the Court was told that he was embroiled in several such proceedings across the States of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.In this context, it was contended that the High Court had ignored that the powers to quash an FIR must be exercised sparingly and only in the rarest of rare cases.Even if it is assumed that the FIR was mala fide, that alone could not have been grounds to quash the case if there is ample material to proceed with the probe, the appeals stated.