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Uy -y HIGH COURT OF GHHATTISGARH :.BtLASPUR Sinale Bench: Hon'bleShriManindraMohanShrivastava.J, PETITIONER RESPONDENTS WRIT PETITIONN0.216&2006 Bhagwan Das Versus i State ofChhattisgarh and others. WRITPETmON UNDER ARTICLE 226Q270F THECONSrTUTION OF INDJA Present: - Shri T.K/Thwari, counselforthepeUtioner. Shri V.V.S. Murthy, Deputy Advocate General alongwith Shri Ajay Dwivedi, Deputy Govemmeht Advocate for the State/respondents No.1,2and4. NoneforrespondentNo.S.s ORALORDER (Passedon 17th January, 2011) By this petition.the petitioner has sought issuance of direction to respondents to perform their duty by registertng FIR in the matter of allegaUon of murderof petitioner'sson-Jai Kumarand for proper investigation. ThepetiUoner has further prayed for direction to respondents to depute the Senior Police Officer to investigate the matter. Further pfayer has been made that respondents No5-may be directed to initiate inquiry against respondent No.3,as resppndent No.3dtd not perform his duty of registeringoffence on the report of the petitioner. 2. The case of the petitioner is that pn 12^/06, some persons of the area named Yogesh @ Yogi and Keshav Sahu misbehayed and abused hisson-Jai Kumar followed by assault on the next day, j.e. on 13/3/06. When his son Jai Kumarreported the matterto respondent No.3, respondent No.3 submitteda f report underSection 151 CrPC beforethe Magistrate. After arrest, Jai Kumar was released on giving pereonal bond whereas the other party Yogesh @ Yogi u' ^-•' was released on the nextday.It is said that Gappu Tiwari, Mahesh Markande, Suresh, Sunil Francis and Satish were friends of Yogeshand they alt are hard- core criminals and were arrested in murder case and number of criminal cases are pending against them. Further case of the petitioner is that on 15/3/06, deceased-Jai Kumar was catled by Gappu Tiwari, Mahesh Markande, Suresh, Sunil and Satish from his house and he was taken by them to railway platform, W.R.S. Raipur where Jai Kumar was assaulted and when he became unconscious, the petitioner was intimated and thereafter, Jai Kumar was admitted in the hospital, where he died. Further case is that merg intimation was recorded by the potice of Police Stah'on-Khamtarai that petitioner's son-Jai Kumar met train accident. Post Mortem was conducted and the Post Mortem report shows that cause of death is due to shock and hemorrhage as a result of multiple injury. According to the petitioner.a wr'rtten complaint was submitted to respondent No.2 and 3. It is the case of the petitioner that even though he had submitted a written complaint aiieging that his son was murdered which cleariy shows a cognizable offence, no offence was registered. Learned counsel for the petitioner argued that the petitioner is Uie father ofthe deceased-Jai Kumar who submitted complaint in writing to the Station House Officer of Police Station- Khamtarai and when no action was taken, he made representations to various authorities which included Superintendent of Police also. Learned counsel argued that once report discloses commission of cognizable offence, the concerned police officer was under statutory obligation to register criminal case and investigate the matter and then submit the result of investigation in the form of report under Section 173 CrPC before the jurisdictional Magistrate. Learned counsel fov the petitioner relied upon the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of RameshKumari v. State (N.C.T. of Delhi) and others reported in AIR ./2^ 2006 Supreme Court 1322 and Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh and others. 2008(71SCC 164. He also retied upon the judgment in thecase ofMohindro v. State of Puniab andothers. 2001 fll} SLT 666. ^ •fc 3. On the other hand, leamed State counsel submitted that as the deceased had died in suspicious circumstances, the merg intimation was recorded under Section 174 CrPC on the information of one Amarjeet, on 16/3/06. Thereafter, post mortem of the body was performed, preliminary enquiry was eonducted wherein statements of number of persons were recorded but no FIR was registered. It is furthersubmitted that FIR was not registered because the petitioner has not approached respondentNo.4, Station House Officer, GRP, W.P.S. Colony.Raipur. Learned counsel for the State next contended that the matter was inquired into and it has been found tfiat it was a case of train accident. Therefore, the City Superintendent of Police, Urla, Raipur in his report dated 616106 also reported that no case for commission of offence of murder is made out. Learned counsel for the respondent also submitted that if the petftioner is not satisfied with the action of poiice authority, he hasatternative remedy of submitting application under Section156 (3) of CrPC before jurisdictional Magistrate as held bythe Supreme Court in the case ofSakiri Vasu v. Stateof U.P., 2008 AIR SCW 309 or to fite complaint as hefd in the case of Lalita Kumari (Supra). He has also relied upon the judgment of this Court in the case of Mohd. Anish Memon v. State of Chhattisaarh and others. 2009 (11CGU 315 wherein under similar facts and situation, the petition was disposed off giving liberty to the petitioner to approach Superintendent of Policeand then to the the ^ Court of Judicial Magistrate under theprovisionsofSection 190 read with Section 200 to 203 or ottier provisionsOfthe Criminal ProcedureCode. 4. From the averments made in Uie petition and the reportwhieh has been lodged bythe petitioner inthe policesiation-Khamtarai (AnnexureS-A, fitedalong with the application for taking documents on record), the petitioner has made atlegations and has stated that his son, Jai Kumar was murdered undera conspiracy which happened after release of Yogesh @ Yogi. The complaint in writing gives the background in which theoffence is alleged to have been committed. It appears thatthe police recorded merg intimationand treated itto be a case of train accident. The Sub-Divisional Magistrate who inquired into the matter, recorded statementsofvarious persons and submitted report before the D.i.G. of police and Seriior Superintendent of Police.Raipur repprtedthat flie allegations relating to commission of offence is not substantiated. The respondents have also placed on record a memo dated 25/2/09 of the Sub- Divisional Officer, Raipur addressed to the Station House OfRcer, Police Station- Khamtarai, in which, it has been stated that as the matter is pending in the Court, it would not be proper to ciose the merg diary. in the case of Ramesh Kumari (Supraj retying upon the decision in the case of State of Harvana and others v. Bhaian Lal and others. 1992 Supplementarv (1) SCC 335, it has been reiterated that the point of law has been set at rest and that the provisions of Section 454 of ftie CrPC is mandatory and that the concemed officer is duty bound to register the case on the basis of an information disciosing cognizable offence. However, in case, on a report made, no action is taken by the police officers then, the course of action, which is required to be taken, has been more F .i^""'!?&^ /y\ ^ ^tes*. 1 1 .!*' elaboratelystated by the Supreme Court in the case of Sakiri Vasu (Supra). In the aforesaid judgment, 'rt has been stated - "11. In this connection, we woutd tike to state that if a person has a grievance that the potice station is not registering his FIR under Section 154, Cr.P.C., then he can approach the Superintendent of Police under Section 154 (3), CrPC by an application in writing. Even if that does not yield any satisfactory result in the sense that either the FIR is still not registered, or that even after registering 'rt no proper investigation is held, it is open to the aggrieved person to file an application under Sectjon 156 (3) CrPC before the learned Magistrate concerned. IT such an application under Section 158 (3) is flled before the Magistrate, the Magistrate can direct the FIR to be registeredand also can direct a proper investigation tobe made, in a case where, according to the aggrieved person, no proper investigation was made. The Magistrate canalso underthe same provision monitor the investigation to ensure a proper investigation." 5; Further, Supreme Court has laid down the guidelines with regard to the coufse ofaction to be adopted, particularly regarding entertaining such grievance by this Court as beiow :- "25. We have elaborated on the above matter because we often find that when someone has a grievance that his FiR has not been registered atthe police station and /or a proper investigation is not being done by the police, he rushes ta the High Court to fite a writ petition or apetition under S«;tion482, CrPC. We are ofthe opinion that the High Court should not encourage this practice and should ordinarily refuse to interfere in such mattere, and relegate the peUtioner to his alternating remedy, flrstly under Section 154 (3)and Section 36, CrPC befbre the concerned police officers, and if that is of no avail.by approaching the concemed Magistrate under Section 156(3)." 6. in the case of Lalita Kumari (Supra) also, the Supreme Court has held - ^^' <..-t^^ ^ /"if^^. li ~site» ,1 ^••^. • ...-^ :.^ ^i^s^--'" ^y "6. In view of the above, we feel that it ishigh time to give directions to the Govemments of all the States and Union Territories besides their Director Generals of Police/Commissioners of Police as the case may be to the effect that if steps are not taken for registration of FIRs immediately and copies thereof are not made over to the complainants, they may move the Magistrates concerned by filing complaint petitions to give direction to Uie potice to register case immediately upon receipt/production ofcopy ofthe orders and make over copy of the FIRs to the comptainants, within twenty-four hours of receipt/production of copy of such orders.It may further give direction to take immediate steps for apprehending the accused persons and recovery of kidnapped/abductedpersons and properties which were the subject-matler of theft or dacoity. In case FIRs are not registered within the aforementioned time, and/or aforementioned steps are not taken by the police, the Magistrate concerned would be justified in initiating contempt proceeding against such delinquent officers and punish them for viotation of ite orders if no sufficient cause is shown and awarding stringent punishment like sentence of imprisonment against them inasmuch as the disciplinary authority wouid be quite justified in initiating departmental proceeding and suspending them in contemplation ofthe same." 7. This Court has also considered this aspect and relying upon the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Sakiri Vasu (Supra), the petition was disposed off giving liberty to approach the Superintendent of Police and thereafter the Court of Judicial Magistrate under the provisions of CrPC. The legal position therefore which emerges is thatin case, no action is taken by the police officers on the report made, the petitioner is required to take steps as taid down by the Supreme Court in the judgment of Sakiri Vasu (Supra)and Lalita Kumari (Supra). Though existence of alternative remedy is not a barand the Supreme Court has held in Sakiri Vasu's case that when there isalternafive K'Y"~<S«- ''s ^ ^^s^,. -^ ••^KfL'^'^^^ -F- ^ ^JJ • ^y^tf'^.- "r?y,,»,,...a-'. t; OBeptr '• remedy, the High Court should not ordinarily interfere, in the present case,! do not find any extra ordinary cireumstances, so as to warrant interference by ttiis Court, notwithstanding existence of remedy available to the petitioner as stated in paragraph 11 of the judgment of the Supreme Court in ttie case of Sakiri Vasu (Supra). 8. Therefore, in the resutt, instead of this Court itsetf issuing any direction in the matter, liberty is reserved to ttie petitioner to submit application under Section 156 (3)or to make complaint before the concemed jurisdicUonal Magistrate. Without commenting on the merits of the case, this Court would like to emphasizethatwhere serious allegations relating to murder are made, the poliGe machinery is expected to deal the matter with utmost seriousness and sincerity. Even without registering offence, the matter has been closed by the poliee machlRery. However, as the petitioner has been given liberty to approach the concemed jurisdictional Magistrate,all these aspects of the matter shaii be looked into by theMagistrate while entertaining the petition under Section 156 (3) or comptaint made by the petitioner. 9. With the afpresaid observations.the petition is finatly disposed off. Sd/- ManindraMohanShrivastava Judge