CRM No. M 14726 of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH -- CRM No. M 14726 of 2010 Date of decision: 18.05.2010 Parampal Singh ........ Petitioner Versus State of Punjab and others .......Respondent(s) Coram: Hon'ble Ms Justice Nirmaljit Kaur -.- Present: Mr. S S Toor, Advocate for the petitioner -.- 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? 2. To be referred to the Reporter or not? 3. Whether the judgement should be reported in the Digest? Nirmaljit Kaur, J. (Oral) This is a petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for issuance of directions to respondent No. 1 and 2 to take immediate action against respondent No. 3 and 4 on the complaint filed by the petitioner (Annexure P-4) and the detailed inquiry report of SDM, Samrala and Tehsildar Khamano (Annexure P-7 and P-8) for committing criminal offence of cheating, fraud, bigamy by remarrying with each other without divorcing the petitioner and for registration of marriage after conspiring with respondent No. 5 to 10 as per detailed inquiry report submitted by SDM Samrala and Tehsildar Khamano and also for obtaining the passport by submitting false information. Without going into the merits of the case, it would be necessary to take into consideration the provision of Section 156 (3) of the Criminal CRM No. M 14726 of 2010 2 Code of Procedure, which reads as under:- “156 (3) Any Magistrate empowered under Section 190 may order such an investigation as above mentioned.” The above provision shows that the Magistrate has the power to inquire into or try under the provisions of Chapter XII. Under Section 156 (3), the Magistrate is also empowered under Section 190 to order investigation and direct the registration of the FIR. Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the case of Sakiri Vasu v. State of U P and others reported as 2008 (1) RCR (Criminal) 392, wherein, it is held that the Magistrate has very wide powers to direct registration of an FIR and to ensure a proper investigation, and for this purpose he can monitor the investigation to ensure that the investigation is done properly. Para 27 and 28 of the aforesaid judgement are reproduced hereunder:- “27. As we have already observed above, the Magistrate has very wide powers to direct registration of an FIR and to ensure a proper investigation, and for this purpose he can monitor the investigation to ensure that the investigation is done properly (though he cannot investigate himself). The High Court should discourage the practice of filing a writ petition or petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C. simply because a person has a grievance that his FIR has not been registered by the police, or after being registered, proper investigation has not been done by the police. For this grievance, the remedy lies under Sections 36 and 154(3) before the concerned police officers, and if that is of no avail, under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C. before the Magistrate or by filing a criminal complaint under Section 200 Cr.P.C. and not by filing a writ petition or a petition under CRM No. M 14726 of 2010 3 Section 482 Cr.P.C. 28. It is true that alternative remedy is not an absolute bar to a writ petition, but it is equally well settled that if there is an alternative remedy the High Court should not ordinarily interfere.” In view of the above, the present petition is dismissed with liberty to the petitioner to file criminal complaint or avail any other alternative remedy as available in accordance with law. (Nirmaljit Kaur) Judge 18.05.2010 mohan