1 mpt IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPLICATION NO.4351 OF 2008 Ambadas Janardan Mahendrakar & ors. ... Applicants versus The State of Maharashtra ... Respondents ... Mr. V.V. Purwant for the applicant. Ms. S.V. Gajare APP for the State. CORAM : D.G. KARNIK, J. DATED : 4th December 2009 P.C. 1. Admit. By consent, taken up for hearing forthwith. 2. By this petition, petitioner prays for a quashing of a second FIR being C.R.No.394 of 2008 recorded in the Mohol police station, Dist.Solapur. 3. On 5th September 2008, on information received that some persons were illegally transporting rice belonging to the government 2 meant for distribution at fair price shops in three trucks bearing no. 5720, 5684 and 665 respectively. The police stopped the trucks at about 22 hours near Parag Dhaba. On inquiry with the drivers and the persons accompanying them in the truck, the police found that the rice meant for fair price shops was illegally transported. They accordingly seized the trucks and the goods therein. First Information Report was lodged by Mr.Deepak Jyotiram Patil, police sub­inspector who had carried out the operation at the police station, Mohol. The drivers of the truck and the persons accompanying them were arrested. While recording their statements, the police found that the documents relating to the rice were forged and fabricated. Therefore, a second FIR regarding the forgery of the documents relating to the title to the rice was recorded under C.R.no.394 of 2008. By this petition, petitioners pray for quashing of the second FIR. 4. In T.T. Antony Vs. State of Kerala 2001(6) SCC 181, the Supreme Court has held that an information given under sub­section (1) of section 154 of Code of Criminal Procedure (commonly known as FIR) is a very important document which sets a criminal law in motion and marks the commencement of the investigation which ends with the formation of the opinion u/s.169 or 170 of the Code of Criminal 3 Procedure, (for short “the Code”) as the case may be, and of a police report u/s.173 of the Code. It is quite possible, and it happens not infrequently, that more information than one are given to a police officer in charge of police station in respect of the same incident involving one or more than one cognizable offence. In such a case, other information is not an FIR but the information which is received first in time, except a vague information by a phone call or telegram, the information first entered in the station house diary is the FIR. All other information made orally or in writing after the commencement of the investigation into a cognizable offence will be statements falling u/s.162 of the Code. No such information/statements can properly be treated as an FIR and entered in the station house diary again as the second FIR which is not in conformity of the scheme of Code. 5. The decision of the Supreme Court in T.T. Antony (supra) is an authority of the proposition that in respect of the same cognizable offence or the same occurrence, second FIR cannot be recorded. If after the recording of an FIR, during the course of investigation it is revealed that some other offence than the one which is already recorded in the FIR is committed, in the course of the same transaction or the same occurrence, the police can carry out further investigation 4 regarding that also but without recording a second FIR. In my view, therefore, the second FIR could not have been recorded on 6th September 2008. The statement of Mr.Deepak Patil, PSI, recorded on 6th September 2008 and all further statements, if any, recorded thereafter would be regarded as statements u/s.162 in respect of first FIR viz. C.R.no.81 of 208 recorded on 5th September 2009. The recording of second FIR is therefore required to be quashed as is hereby quashed. 3. At this point, it is necessary to clarify that this order though the second FIR is quashed that would not mean that the statements recorded on 6th September 2008 and/or 7th September 2008 are quashed. They cannot be ignored but they would be regarded as statements recorded u/s.162 of the Code and the police would be free to investigate into the other offences, if any, which would be disclosed while investing into the crime registered under the first FIR and file an appropriate charge sheet. 4. With this observations, application is disposed of. (D.G. KARNIK,J.)