Lalita Kumari vs Government of Uttar Pradesh and Others AIR 2012 SC 1515

This Case Summary is written by Shruti Singh, a 2nd-year law student at the Faculty of Law, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi

SYNOPSIS

What is the statutory intent behind codifying Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973? Is the mandate to register “every information relating to the commission of the cognizable offence” imperative in nature? What remedy is available for the neutrality of the police officer on this issue? Is discretion available to police officers to first ascertain the veracity of the said information? If yes, how would our legal system provide speedy justice when the very stepping stone of putting the criminal law is delayed or denied? If not, is there any probability of one’s infringement of the fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 14, 19 and 21? As Supreme Court has affirmed earlier in the case of Maneka Gandhi, a law which deprives one’s liberty must be reasonable both from the substantive and procedural point of view. How our legal system functions to make a balance between social interests and individual interests? Whether recording of the information in the general diary will amount to compliance with the mandate of Section 154 of the CrPc? What are the exceptional circumstances where it is justified to conduct preliminary inquiry to avoid fraudulent cases before lodging FIR? 

All surmises regarding the mandatory nature of Section 154 of the CrPc were brought to an end by the Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court by making a literal interpretation of the given provision and making an outlook of the historical development with which this provision went through. All the issues mentioned above were discussed at length with the aid of the previous judgment of the Court on this issue and constructing the other provisions of our Constitution.

This paper seeks to evaluate the imperative nature of this impugned provision.

KEYWORDS: Every information, shall, cognizable offence, general diary, FIR, legislative intent

INTRODUCTION

Section 154 of the CrPc, 1973 lays down that substance of every piece of information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence given to the officer in charge of the police station shall be entered in a book to be kept by such officer in such form as the State Government may prescribe in this behalf. The issue regarding ascertaining the mandatory nature of lodging an FIR came before the Constitutional Bench when the concerned police officer denied the lodging of an FIR regarding the kidnapping of a minor child Lalita Kumari. This case came first before the two benches of the Supreme Court, which acknowledged the mandatory nature of Section 154 of the code but further admitted the gravity of the issue; it was ultimately referred to the 5 judge bench of the Supreme Court for seeking clarity on this issue.

This case ended the question mark regarding the available discretion to police officers to make a preliminary enquiry before lodging FIR to ascertain the veracity of the given information, subject to a few special natures of cases which the honourable bench itself illustrated. The bench relied on the first and foremost rule of interpretation, “the literal rule of interpretation,” to reach this conclusion.

My case commentary is an endeavour to analyze the nature of Section 154 of the CrPc in light of the given judgment.

BACKGROUND

In light of the following background, this case commentary is going to be framed:

• Background of the alleged violation of the statutory mandate
• Background of the present writ petition

A. Background of the alleged violation of the statutory mandate

One Lalita Kumari (a minor) approached the court through her father for the issuance of the writ of Habeas Court or an order of the like nature against the respondents for the protection of his daughter, who had been kidnapped.

It was submitted that on 11.05.2008, a written report was submitted by the petitioner to the officer-in-charge of the police station, who did not take any action on the same. This callous indifference by the authorities concerned compelled him to approach the Superintendent of Police only after the FIR could be registered. 

Petitioner alleged that even after this, steps were not taken either to apprehend the accused or to recover the minor girl child.

B. Background of the present writ petition

This matter was first heard by the two-judge bench of the Supreme Court. In light of the conflicting decisions of the Apex Court on this issue, the said bench, vide order dated 16.09.2008, referred the matter to the larger bench. Subsequently, a three-judge bench heard the matter in 2012, and ultimately it was referred to the constitutional bench on recognizing that issue in question is of great public importance.

FACTS OF THE CASE

As already in the above section, a minor girl Lalita Kumari was kidnapped, and his father went to register the complaint for the same. The officer-in-charge showed reluctance, and thereby, he approached the Superintendent of Police (Section 154-3), only after FIR could be lodged. However, the Police authorities failed to apprehend the accused and find the girl. The various Chief Secretaries of all the States and Union Territories and Director Generals of Police/Commissioners of Police gave their submissions regarding the issue of disparity in the lodging of FIR across the country. The main issues discussed at length can be enumerated as follows in the upcoming section.

ISSUES FOR CONSIDERATION

• Whether “a police officer is bound to register a First Information Report (FIR) upon receiving any information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence under Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (in short ‘the Code’) or the police officer has the power to conduct a “preliminary inquiry” in order to test the veracity of such information before registering the same?”
• Whether the immediate non-registration of FIR leads to scope for manipulation by the police, which affects the right of the victim/complainant to have a complaint immediately investigated upon allegations being made.
• Whether in cases where the complaint/information 27 Page 28 does not clearly disclose the commission of a cognizable offence but the FIR is compulsorily registered, then does it infringe the rights of the accused.

CONTENTIONS ON THE PART OF THE PETITIONER

1. Provisions laid down in Section 154 (1) of the code are mandatory as the legislature deliberately used the word ‘shall’.
2. The word ‘information’ has been used without prefixes like ‘reasonable’ or ‘credible’. Thereby once information is given to the officer-in-charge is given information regarding the commission of the cognizable offence, he is left with no option but to register the same.
3. There are various adverse impacts of allowing police officers to hold preliminary inquiries before registering an FIR.

CONTENTIONS ON THE PART OF RESPONDENT

1. on receiving information on the commission of a cognizable offence under Section 154 of the Code, an investigating officer has the power to conduct a preliminary inquiry before registration of FIR. (State of Chhattisgarh)

At present, police officers have such discretion in matrimonial, commercial, medical negligence and corruption-related offences. The crime manual of CBI and the police rules prevailing in the States of Punjab, Rajasthan, U.P., Madhya Pradesh, Kolkata, Bombay, etc., lay down provisions regarding conducting an inquiry before registering an FIR. Thereby, holding a preliminary enquiry before registering FIR is legitimate in the eyes of the law.

2. Lodging of FIR without scrutiny would violate the mandate of Article 21 of the Constitution.

Authority of the Maneka Gandhi v. U.O.I (1978) 1 SCC 248 was cited whereby it was held that the expression “law” contained in Article 21 necessarily postulates law which is reasonable and not merely statutory provisions irrespective of its reasonableness or otherwise.

3. Literal Interpretation of Section 154 of the CrPc would reduce the registration of the FIR to a mechanical act.

4. The adequate remedies available on the refusal the registering an FIR are indicative of the legislative intent that the police officer is not bound to record an FIR merely because the ingredients of a cognizable offence are disclosed in the complaint if he has some doubts regarding the credibility of the given information.

The word “shall” doesn’t necessarily mean the absence of discretion in every case.

REASONING

The underlying principles on which basis judgment was delivered can be summarized as follow:

1. The provision empowering the police officer to conduct an investigation (Section 156) is followed by the requirement of registering the information regarding the commission of a cognizable offence (Section 154). This clears the legislative intent that recording the first information should be the starting point of any investigation by the police.

2. There is no ambiguity in the language of Section 154 (1); the first and foremost rule of interpretation “literal rule of interpretation” should be invoked.

3. The use of the word “shall” indicates the legislative intent to make the provision imperative.

The information must be recorded if it is ex-facie that discloses the commission of the cognizable offence.

4. The FIR is to be recorded in the FIR book, not the general diary.

5. The laws made by the Parliament will prevail over the legislature if both are competent to enact the same subject under the Concurrent list to the extent of inconsistency under Article 254 (1).

6. The Delhi Special Police Act, 1956, is protected by virtue of Section 4 (2) and Section 5 of the CrPc.

7. Registration of FIR is mandatory and not the immediate arrest of the accused.

APPROACH OF THE JUDICIARY

While dealing with the facts of the given circumstances, the court was pleased to pass the following directions:

1. Registration of FIR is mandatory under Section 154 of the CrPc if the given information discloses the commission of the cognizable offence, and no preliminary inquiry is permissible.

2′ If the given information doesn’t disclose the cognizable offence but the need to conduct a preliminary inquiry should be conducted. FIR should be registered if it discloses the cognizable offence. In cases where the need is to close the complaint after such inquiry, a copy of the report containing the reasons behind doing so should be furnished within one week. Erring Police officers shall be subject to strict action.

3. Cases where preliminary inquiry is permissible:

• Matrimonial disputes/ family disputes 
• Commercial offences
• Medical negligence cases
• Corruption cases 
• Cases with an abnormal delay in initiating criminal prosecution, for example, over 3 months delay in reporting the matter without satisfactorily explaining the delay.

List is illustrative

• The preliminary inquiry should be conducted within 7 days; the reasons behind the delay should be mentioned in the General Diary.
• General Diary must reflect all the information relating to cognizable offence and the decision relating to initiating cognizable offence.

Judiciary disposed of the reference made to it and asked to refer it to the appropriate bench to decide on merits.

COMMENTS

This comment section will offer an outlook on the gist of section 154 of the CrPc, in light of the above-decided case:

• Supreme Court has rightly invoked the literal rule of interpretation in this as the clear language asks for ‘every information’ relating to the commission of the cognizable offence to be registered. Even if we take a look at the historical legal development that took place in this regard since 1861, legislative intent is crystal clear in this regard. As it never qualified the term information or complaint, the same has been done deliberately when it found it appropriate to do so like- Section 41 (1-b), the CrPc, 1973.
• As far as the concern of the infringement of one’s liberty, it would be an exaggeration of the situation, as the code never asked to arrest immediately after registering FIR. However, parallelly one innocent person might be subject to the social stigma. The same can’t be denied. But, it can’t suffice the ground of denying the lodging of FIR, which sets the entire justice system in motion.
• Fake cases are being registered in number of circumstances like under Section 498-A IPC. The same has been addressed by the Supreme Court in the case of Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar (2014) 8 SCC 273, and asked the State Governments to direct the police officials not to automatically arrest when FIR is registered under Section 498-A IPC, unless the parameters of Section 41, the CrPc, 1973 is not fulfilled.

CONCLUSION

This Case of Lalita Kumari v. Govt. of UP & Ors. was a commendable attempt on the part of the Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court to fill up the loophole of the provision under Section 154 of the CrPc,1973, which primarily arose due to numerous of conflicting judgment given so far. This has been misused and resulted in the disparity in the actual number of crimes committed and FIR registered. However, the Apex Court must also have thrown some light on the speedy remedy that one can avail against such erring police officials, which is unfortunately not rare. Last but not least, this case is a guiding stone for all who are subject to troubles when they aspire to seek the very first resort in the criminal legal system, i.e. ‘lodging of the FIR’.

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