Supreme Court of India has dismissed a public interest litigation petition which sought a direction from the Court to enforce the directions of the Court in Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh & Ors : (2014) 2 SCC 1.
When the matter was called for hearing, the Chief Justice of India TS Thakur asked the counsel appearing for Petitioner to give a specific instance where an FIR was not lodged as was mandated in Lalita Kumari. As no specific instance was given, the bench which also consisted of Justices AK Sikri and R Banumathi, dismissed the petition.
Case No. | Writ Petition (C) No. 834 of 2015 |
Case Title | Debashish Rout v. Union of India |
The petition had inter alia sought for:
Issue a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direct the respondent to take all necessary steps to give effect to the direction of this Hon’ble Court contained in para 120.4 of the judgment in Lalita Kumari vs. Govt. of U.P. reported in (2014) 2 SCC 1, etc
In the historic judgment of Lalita Kumari, Supreme Court had held:
1. Registration of FIR is mandatory under Section 154 of the Code, if the information discloses commission of a cognizable offence and no preliminary inquiry is permissible in such a situation.
2. If the information received does not disclose a cognizable offence but indicates the necessity for an inquiry, a preliminary inquiry may be conducted only to ascertain whether cognizable offence is disclosed or not.
3. If the inquiry discloses the commission of a cognizable offence, the FIR must be registered. In cases where preliminary inquiry ends in closing the complaint, a copy of the entry of such closure must be supplied to the first informant forthwith and not later than one week. It must disclose reasons in brief for closing the complaint and not proceeding further.
4. The police officer cannot avoid his duty of registering offence if cognizable offence is disclosed. Action must be taken against erring officers who do not register the FIR if information received by him discloses a cognizable offence.
5. The scope of preliminary inquiry is not to verify the veracity or otherwise of the information received but only to ascertain whether the information reveals any cognizable offence.
6. As to what type and in which cases preliminary inquiry is to be conducted will depend on the facts and circumstances of each case. The category of cases in which preliminary inquiry may be made are as under:
a) Matrimonial disputes/ family disputes
b) Commercial offences
c) Medical negligence cases
d) Corruption cases
e) Cases where there is abnormal delay/laches in initiating criminal prosecution, for example, over 3 months delay in reporting the matter without satisfactorily explaining the reasons for delay.
The aforesaid are only illustrations and not exhaustive of all conditions which may warrant preliminary inquiry.7. While ensuring and protecting the rights of the accused and the complainant, a preliminary inquiry should be made time bound and in any case it should not exceed 7 days. The fact of such delay and the causes of it must be reflected in the General Diary entry.
8. Since the General Diary/Station Diary/Daily Diary is the record of all information received in a police station, we direct that all information relating to cognizable offences, whether resulting in registration of FIR or leading to an inquiry, must be mandatorily and meticulously reflected in the said Diary and the decision to conduct a preliminary inquiry must also be reflected, as mentioned above.
Note: Para 111 of the Lalita Kumari, judgment which contains the orders of the Court, has been reported by Supreme Court Cases (SCC) at para 120.