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FIR registration must: SC
S.S. Negi
Legal Correspondent

It is a sorry state of affairs in the police all over the country that FIRs are not simply registered… It even happened in my own case when my wife and daughter-in-law went to a police station to register a case in the capital. The FIR was registered after two hours… — Justice B. N. Agrawal

New Delhi, July 24
In a strong warning to the police across the country against not registering cases on complaints filed by citizens, the Supreme Court today directed all state governments to issue clear instructions to their police force to make registration of FIRs mandatory.

It said if any officer in charge of a police station failed to follow the direction, he should be placed under suspension.

“It is a sorry state of affairs in the police all over the country that FIRs are not simply registered… It even happened in my own case when my wife and daughter-in-law went to a police station to register a case in the capital. The FIR was registered only after two hours…If this is the situation with a Supreme Court Judge, imagine what happens to the common man,” Justice B. N. Agrawal, sitting in a Bench with Justice P. P. Naolekar, said.

Justice Agrawal, however, did not elaborate when this happened with his wife and daughter-in-law.

Making it clear that under the law the police had no power to decide on the merits of the complaint, the Bench said “the police has become thoroughly corrupt in the country and it simply refuses to register cases. The police has no jurisdiction to verify the complaint and see whether a case is made out or not. It is bound to register an FIR.”

The court said the police need not consult the public prosecutor about the legal viability of a complaint and take his opinion whether to register an FIR or not and “if it doesn’t register it, then this will be considered dereliction of duty.”

The anger was expressed by the court during the hearing of a petition pertaining to a case of Tamil actor T. Srikant whose father’s complaint for registering an FIR against a woman who had entered their house claiming to be the wife of the film star, was simply ignored by the Chennai police even when a complaint was made to the police commissioner.

The incident took place on June 30 and when on repeated request to the police, no case was registered, Srikant’s father T. Krishnamachari had forwarded the complaint to the police commissioner on July 14.

As the police still failed to register the case of house trespass against the woman, S.Vandna, the actor’s father, filed a petition in the high court, which directed that an FIR should be registered.

Vandnra today moved the apex court against the high court’s July 19 order seeking to stay it, claiming that she was the legally wedded wife of the actor, who had married her at Kakinada sometimes back.

But the apex court dismissed her petition on the grounds that it was not a stage for examining the veracity of her petition as even it had required the high court’s intervention to register the FIR, which was a serious matter.

The job of the police as defined in the law was to register a case and investigate the matter. If a case was made out, it could proceed further and if not close it, but it could not evaluate the merits of the complaint at first glance just on the receipt of it, the apex court clarified.