SC guidelines considered before filing FIR against Tomar, say police

Delhi Police considered a November 2013 order of the Supreme Court to file the FIR over the Bar Council of Delhi complaint against Delhi Law Minister Jitender Singh Tomar.

“An enquiry as per the direction of Supreme Court of India in Lalita Kumari vs State of UP was got conducted into the complaint,” said Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Deepak Mishra.

In the order, the court had held that the registration of an FIR is mandatory in cognisable offences and an action will be taken against the police officer for his failure to register an FIR on the complaint of a cognisable offence.

The matter was heard by the constitution bench consisting of Chief Justice P Sathasivam, Justice B S Chauhan, Justice Ranjana Desai, Rajan Gogoi and Justice Bobde.

“Registration of FIR is mandatory under section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, if the information discloses commission of a cognisable offence and no preliminary inquiry is permissible in such a situation,” the order stated.

“If the information received does not disclose a cognisable offence, but indicates the necessity for an inquiry, a preliminary inquiry may be conducted only to ascertain whether cognisable offence is disclosed or not,” the order added.

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.
The order also highlighted that a police officer cannot avoid his duty of registering offence if cognisable offence is disclosed.

It was held that action must be taken against the erring officers who do not register the FIR if information received by him discloses a cognisable offence.

“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 cognisable offence,” the court had said.

Over the complaint against Tomar, police claimed that probe involving Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Avadh University and Tilka Manjhi Bhagalpur University revealed a cognisable offence which resulted in registration of the FIR with Hauz Khas police station.