Last Tuesday, the country’s highest judicial body gave its ruling on what a policeman must to do when you walk into a police station with information about crime. The Constitutional bench of the Supreme Court said the police have no option but to record in writing the information you give about the crime, if it is a cognizable offence, attest it with your signature or thumb impression and give you a free copy of the document that is the starting point for any crime investigation: the First Information Report (FIR).
That the matter went to the Constitutional bench itself is indicative of the fact that the personnel in khaki often choose to interpret a key provision of the Criminal Procedure Code differently. For, a bare reading of a couple of sentences in Section 154 will tell you that the FIR must be registered immediately. And the refusal to record an FIR could mean denial of justice. It sometimes means the complainant has no chance of getting back things he lost in a theft or robbery. Sometimes it means that offenders who had harmed him or continue to harm him will never be made accountable.
“In Tamil Nadu, every year nearly 7 lakh FIRs are filed. The issue here is not that they never register FIRs. Problems arise when influential people get involved in the cases. Especially, the complaints filed by people from weaker sections of the society don’t easily get into the police records. For example, if you want to file a complaint against a politician or policeman, chances of the FIR being filed - let alone investigated – are remote,” says A Kathir, executive director of Evidence, an NGO working on human rights issues.
Efficiency factor
So, why do the police prefer to avoid such basic documentation? One reason is that every police officer wants to showcase his efficiency in curtailing crimes. Your efficiency is directly proportional to the crime graph under your watch. Tweak it and hey presto, you get a great record.
One trick in the book is to avoid registering an FIR in a theft case till the goods are recovered. This is especially common in complaints of vehicle thefts. “The fear is that they won’t be able to trace the property. File FIRs in all cases and you will have a poor theft-recovery ratio. But do so only if the stolen property is traced, and the efficiency ratio goes up,” a senior police officer admits while speaking off the record. Even if an FIR is filed, the complainant is persuaded to quote a lesser value for the stolen property so that the final tally is airbrushed.
Police take
Seasoned police officers have a different take. They say avoiding filing FIRs for ulterior motives is a very simplistic explanation. “In reality, people lodge all sorts of false complaints. For example, if a person clears a public service commission exam, his opponent could lodge a false complaint against him. This would create trouble during the police verification process and jeopardise his career,” says former director general of police R Nataraj. Therefore, the current practice is to make an entry in the Community Service Register (CSR) and give a copy to the complainant. “After this, a preliminary enquiry is conducted and only if the enquiry reveals any offence, the FIR is registered,” he says.
Point takes, say activists, but claim that often complaints of theft are registered only in the CSR, since entries there do not get reflected in the crime statistics collated by the National Crime Records Bureau. “Besides, the police often refuse to register even genuine cases, which is why we seek judicial intervention. That has a negative spin-off: since we force the police officer’s hand, he develops a grudge and delays investigation in the case. I feel a time-bound investigation must also be made mandatory if we have to take this to its logical conclusion. A separate investigation wing with adequate manpower is also a must to implement such a time-bound investigation,” says A Natarajan, a senior advocate practicing in the Madras High Court.
While Kathir hopes the recent SC verdict would prod the police to change their attitude, many prefer to keep their fingers crossed. “I am very skeptical that things will improve. The SC has also said in the judgment that erring police officers must be punished. Unless exemplary punishments are given, things are unlikely to change,” says Henry Tiphagne of People’s Watch, another NGO.