Calcutta High Court | Section 94 BNSS Upheld As Valid Power To Call For Documents | Court Declines To Quash Notice In Scholarship Records Investigation
Sanchayita Lahkar
The High Court at Calcutta, Single Bench of Justice Tirthankar Ghosh, on September 3, 2025, dismissed a writ petition challenging a notice issued under Section 94 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023. The Court held that the investigating officer was justified in seeking production of documents during the course of investigation and declined to interfere with the statutory powers exercised. The Court directed that all concerned parties act on the server copy of the order as available on the official website and permitted urgent certified copies to be issued upon compliance with requisite formalities. The Court refused to quash the notice issued to a University Registrar for production of student scholarship records.
The proceedings arose from a notice issued under Section 94 of the BNSS, 2023, directing the Registrar of a private University to furnish records of all students who received government scholarships from 2020 to 2025. The notice was issued in connection with Mohanpur Police Station Case No. 110 of 2025 dated July 3, 2025. The genesis of the case lay in a written complaint dated June 18, 2025, lodged by one Gopi Bondhu Ganguly before the Officer-in-Charge, Mohanpur Police Station. The complaint alleged organized use of unfair means, leakage of question papers, and distribution of answers during the May 2025 semester examinations of the West Bengal State Council of Technical and Vocational Education and Skill Development at Regent Institute of Science and Technology, Barrackpore.
The complaint described alleged premature opening of sealed packets of question papers, circulation of examination papers through WhatsApp and Telegram, absence of the observer after the first day of the examination, and instructions by the Centre-in-Charge to provide answers to students. It alleged that faculty members were involved in writing answers which were then distributed. Reference was made to requisition of reams of paper during the examination period, purportedly used for preparing answers.
The complaint sought immediate seizure of CCTV footage from examination halls, strong rooms, and control rooms, noting apprehensions of destruction of evidence. It cited provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024. Supreme Court precedents, including Krishna Yadav v. State of Haryana (1994) 4 SCC 165 and Director (Studies), Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Hotel Management v. Vaibhav Singli Chauhan (2009) 1 SCC 59, were invoked in support of strict action against examination malpractices.
On July 25, 2025, the investigating officer issued a notice under Section 94 of BNSS, 2023 to the Registrar of the University, seeking records of government scholarship recipients. The petitioners, the University and its Registrar, challenged this notice by way of a writ petition. They argued that the University, established under the Swami Vivekananda University Act, 2019, had no role in the internal affairs of Regent Institute of Science and Technology, which was affiliated to the State Council and approved by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). They contended that Regent Institute was founded in 2012 and offered diploma courses, whereas the petitioner University, founded later, had no control or administrative link with it.
The petitioners submitted that scholarships such as Aikyashree and the Swami Vivekananda Merit-cum-Means Scholarship were granted directly by the State Government, after a three-tier verification process by the University, district nodal officer, and state nodal officer, with disbursal directly into the students’ bank accounts. They argued that the University did not disburse scholarships, and that records were maintained with the Government. It was urged that invocation of Section 94 of BNSS was unjustified, as there was no nexus between the case and the University, and that the notice amounted to a roving inquiry. Reliance was placed on Ajay Mukherji v. State (1971 SCC OnLine Cal 133), Om Prakash Sharma v. CBI (2000) 5 SCC 679, and Asha Mukherjee v. Union of India (2020 SCC OnLine Cal 1717), to contend that such notices could not be issued without necessity or desirability.
On behalf of the State, it was argued that preliminary enquiry and investigation revealed a large-scale educational scam involving scholarships to undeserving students. It was submitted that both Regent Institute and the University were run by the same trustee, and that one angle under investigation was whether financial benefits were derived by the institutions in the name of scholarships. The State stated that Section 94 of BNSS expressly empowered the investigating officer to seek production of documents, and that the statutory procedure was being followed. Reliance was placed on J. Jayalalithaa v. State of Karnataka (2014) 2 SCC 401, reiterating that when a statute prescribes a procedure, it must be followed in that manner alone.
The Court recorded the rival contentions and proceeded to consider the legality of the notice under Section 94 of BNSS. It noted: “Section 94 primarily serves as a procedural instrument enabling the issuance of summons for the production of documents or material evidence.” The Court stated that the provision applies at all stages including investigation, inquiry, trial, and other proceedings under the BNSS. It recorded that the threshold for invoking Section 94 is the satisfaction of the Court or the police authority that production of materials is necessary or desirable.
The Court observed: “The ultimate object behind Section 94 of BNSS is to confer power in the hands of the Court or in case of pending investigation, inquiry, trial or other proceedings to produce document or other thing which the Court or the police authorities deems relevant and cogent for conducting of investigation, inquiry, trial or other proceedings and which are not already on record or are required for the purposes of investigation.” It further stated: “Thus, it is a supplementary power available for unearthing truth in course of investigation/inquiry/trial or other proceedings for preventing failure of justice.”
Referring to authorities, the Court cited the Privy Council in King Emperor v. Khwaja Nazir Ahmad, AIR 1945 PC 18, which stated: “In India, as has been shown, there is a statutory right on the part of the police to investigate the circumstances of an alleged cognizable crime without requiring any authority from the judicial authorities, and it would, as Their Lordships think, be an unfortunate result if it should be held possible to interfere with those statutory rights by an exercise of the inherent jurisdiction of the court.” The Court also relied on State of Bihar v. J.A.C. Saldanha, noting: “There is a clear-cut and well demarcated sphere of activity in the field of crime detection and crime punishment. Investigation of an offence is the field exclusively reserved for the executive through the Police Department.”
Further reliance was placed on M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (2007) 1 SCC 110 and Neeharika Infrastructure (P) Ltd. v. State of Maharashtra (2021) 19 SCC 401, reiterating the separation of investigative and adjudicatory functions, and the principle that police powers to investigate cognizable offences are ordinarily not to be interfered with.
Having considered submissions, the Court stated: “The materials which have been collected in course of the investigation, as is reflected from the case diary, prima facie satisfies the requirement in respect of the documents called for by the investigating officer of the case. To assign further reason relating to the cause of such justification would be interfering with the investigation itself, which would be transgressing to a domain which is not called for while exercise powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.”
In conclusion, the Court stated: “Having regard to the aforesaid observations, I am of the view that the petitioner has failed to make out any case for interference by this Court. Consequently, WPA 17617 of 2025 is dismissed.” The Court directed: “All concerned parties shall act on the server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court. Urgent photostat certified copy of the judgement, if applied for, be supplied to the parties upon compliance with all requisite formalities.”
Advocates Representing the Parties
For the Petitioners: Mr. Sandipan Ganguly, Senior Advocate; Mr. Srijib Chakraborty; Mr. Pinak Mitra; Mr. Debdut Banerjee
For the Respondents: Mr. Suman Sengupta; Ms. Amrita Panja Moulick
Case Title: Swami Vivekananda University & Anr. v. State of West Bengal & Ors.
Case Number: WPA 17617 of 2025
Bench: Justice Tirthankar Ghosh
