Only higher courts have power to change probe agency:HC

The Madras High Court has held that judicial magistrates cannot order change of investigating agency in criminal cases as such power was vested only with higher courts.
If judicial magistrates are not satisfied with the probe by local police, at the most, they can only direct further investigation and cannot order any other agency such as Crime-Branch Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID), to go into the case, Justice C T Selvam of the Madurai bench said in his order.
Relying upon a 2015 Supreme Court ruling, the Judge said the power to change investigating agencies was reserved for the higher courts.

He was allowing a petition by CB-CID in Tiruchirappalli challenging a direction given to them by a Magistrate to investigate a criminal complaint lodged by a 62-year-old man.
The judge set aside the Magistrate's order and also quashed the FIR registered by the police as well as all proceedings related to it.
While the local police registered an FIR in 2006 and filed two negative reports, the magistrate had ordered the CB-CID probe in 2009 on a petition by the man seeking change of investigating agency.