We are happy to blame the politicians and the government for the various shortcomings of India’s criminal justice system but are reluctant ...
We are happy to blame the politicians and the government for the various shortcomings of India’s criminal justice system but are reluctant to understand certain underlying reasons for these and focus on possible solutions. Two of these problems are corruption and general unfriendly behaviour in the police department.
Most citizens know how difficult it is to get the police to register a First Information Report. One impact of this is that citizens do not report most crimes. Section 154 of the Criminal Procedure Code mandates an FIR to be recorded by the police when the first information of a crime is given to them. A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in Lalita Kumari versus Government of Uttar Pradesh held that registration of First Information Report 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 FIR is an instrument that gives the police the authority to investigate an incident and its veracity has to be confirmed by the investigation. When an FIR is not registered, the rule of law suffers grievously.
Citizens usually blame the individual police official whom they meet at the police station...
