1603cwp164.11.odt 1/5 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR. CRIMINAL WRIT PETITION NO.164 of 2011. Shri Sharmendra Maheshwari Rupkumar Gandhi and ors. ..vs.. The Commissioner of Police, Nagpur Zone Nagpur and ors. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Office notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders Court's or Judge's Orders. or directions and Registrar's orders. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr.S.G.Bhandare, Adv. for the petitioner. Mrs.S.S.Wandile, APP for the respondents. CORAM : V.K.TAHILRAMANI AND PRASANNA B.VARALE, JJ. DATED : 16TH MARCH, 2011. 1. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned APP for the respondents. 2. The petitioner has made two prayers in this petition. The first prayer is that police should register his FIR. So far as this prayer is concerned, the learned counsel for the petitioner has relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Ramesh Kumari ..vs.. State (N.C.T. of Delhi) and ors. Reported in AIR 2006 SC 1322 to contend that it is the bounden duty of the police to register FIR on the basis of information disclosing cognizable offence. We have carefully perused the said decision. The decision is on the point that when a complaint is made to the police about a 1603cwp164.11.odt 2/5 cognizable offence, the police cannot undertake a preliminary enquiry before registering the FIR and the police have to directly register the FIR. Thus, the issue before the Supreme Court in this matter was whether preliminary enquiry can be held before registering a FIR. 3. On the issue involved in the present case, we would like to refer to a decision of Supreme Court in the case of Aleque Padamsee and ors. ..vs.. Union of India and ors., reported in (2007)6 SCC 171. In this case, the Supreme Court held that if information is given to the police regarding commission of cognizable offence and no action is taken by the police then the proper remedy is to file a complaint before the concerned Magistrate. The Hon'ble Supreme Court has specifically observed that in such a case a writ petition is not to be entertained as there is a remedy available of filing a complaint before the Magistrate. The Supreme Court disposed of the writ petition with the following direction. “If any person is aggrieved by the inaction of the police officials in registering the FIR, the modalities contained in Section 190 read with Section 200 of the Code are to be adopted and observed.” 1603cwp164.11.odt 3/5 4. The Supreme Court in the case of Commissioner of Income Tax vs. Sun Engineering Works (P) Ltd., reported in (1992)4 SCC 363 has observed as under : “........It is neither desirable nor permissible to pick out a word or a sentence from the judgment of this Court, divorced from the context of the question under consideration and treat it to be the complete ‘law’ declared by this Court. The judgment must be read as a whole and the observations from the judgment have to be considered in the light of the question which were before this Court. A decision of this Court takes its colour from the questions involved in the case in which it is rendered and while applying the decision to a later case, the Courts must carefully try to ascertain the true principle laid down by the decision of this Court and not to pick out words or sentences from the judgment, divorced from the context of the questions under consideration by this Court to support their reasonings. In Madhav Rao Scindia vs. Union of India, this Court cautioned : “It is not proper to regard a word, a clause or a sentence occurring in a judgment of the Supreme Court, divorced from its context as containing a full exposition of the law on a question when the question did not even fall to be answered in that judgment”. In the above case relied upon by the learned counsel for the petitioner the question did not arise for consideration in relation to non-registration of FIR, whereas, this question directly arose for consideration in Aleque Padamsee. Thus, in our view the decision in Aleque Padamsee is squarely 1603cwp164.11.odt 4/5 applicable to the present case. Hence, it would be open to the petitioner to adopt such a remedy. In view of the decision of the Supreme Court, it is obvious that the remedy open to the petitioner is to file a complaint before the concerned Magistrate. 5. The learned counsel for the petitioner has also relied on a decision of this court in the case of Archana Harshwardhan Chaturvedi and anr. ..vs.. Commissioner of Police and ors., reported in 2007 Cri.L.J. (NOC) 933 (Bom) :: 2007(5) AIR Bom R 552 (Nagpur Bench) wherein it is observed that it is mandatory for the police officer to register the crime. We have already reproduced above what the Supreme Court has held in a case of non-registration of FIR. We are bound to follow the decision of the Supreme Court on this issue. Thus, no case is made out for grant of the first prayer. 6. The second prayer of the petitioner is that the respondents be directed to provide police protection to him and his family. The learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that though his wife made an application to the Commissioner of Police for police protection, they have yet not been granted police protection. It is stated that the wife of petitioner preferred an application dated 22/2/2011 to the Commissioner of Police praying therein for police protection for herself and her family. If such an application is received by Commissioner of Police, the same be decided 1603cwp164.11.odt 5/5 within a period of two weeks from today. Learned APP undertakes to communicate this order to the Commissioner of Police. Petition disposed of with above directions. JUDGE JUDGE chute