CHENNAI: Dissenting with the earlier ruling of a judge that parties could not straight away approach the High Court for a directive to the police to register an FIR on a complaint without exhausting the remedies available at other lower judicial levels, another judge held recently that the affected parties could directly approach the HC under section 482 of the CrPC.
Accepting the arguments of advocate G Mohanakrishnan, Justice M S Ramesh said the orders of the Supreme Court, which had held that the ground of alternate remedy was not a bar to invoke section 482 of the CrPC.When an extraordinary situation excited the High Court’s jurisdiction, there could not be a total ban on the exercise of its inherent powers, he had held.
“These propositions are binding on this court to the extent that the petition for a directive to register a police complaint under Sec. 482 CrPC is maintainable before the High Court,” Justice Ramesh said.
Though this section could be invoked for a directive to the police to register a complaint, such directive could not circumvent the time table prescribed by the Supreme Court in the Lalita Kumari Vs Government of Uttar Pradesh case, he added.
The section begins with a non obstante clause and in view of the inherent powers conferred therein, there could not be a total ban on the High Court’s interminable jurisdiction.
In other words, the availability of an alternate remedy under the Code of Criminal Procedure could not be an embargo for the High Court to exercise its inherent powers to secure the ends of justice in view of the non obstante clause.
This court was conscious of the fact that the powers under section 482 of the CrPC must be exercised very sparingly and in the rarest of rare cases and the limitation to exercise this power was self restrained, the judge noted. Hence, the present petition praying for a directive to the police to register a complaint under Sec. 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code was maintainable, the judge pointed out.