Police Deviance in Registration and Investigation

In one line

The single most consequential decision in Indian criminal justice is whether a station house officer writes anything down, and the law that makes registration mandatory exists because he frequently does not.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the refusal to register a first information report is the commonest form of police deviance; the Supreme Court held in Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh that registration on information disclosing a cognizable offence is mandatory, and the corresponding provision is now section 173 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023.

Why non-registration happens

The detection percentage. A station is judged on the proportion of registered cases it detects. A case unlikely to be solved lowers that proportion, and not registering it protects the figure. This is a target producing exactly the behaviour a target always produces.

The pressure to show low crime. A rise in registered offences is read as a failure of the station, so the station suppresses the figure rather than the offence.

Workload. Registration creates an obligation to investigate that the station cannot discharge.

Influence. Where the person complained against has standing, the complaint is turned away or diverted into a non-cognizable entry.

And money. Not registering is a service that can be sold, and so is registering against somebody.

The law

Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh, (2014) 2 SCC 1, AIR 2014 SC 187.

Facts. A minor girl was abducted. Her father gave written information at the police station and the officer did not register a first information report. When he approached the Superintendent of Police no action followed either. He came to the Supreme Court under article 32, and the Court took the case as the occasion to settle a question on which its own benches had differed for years: whether an officer who receives information disclosing a cognizable offence must register a case at once, or may first satisfy himself that the information is true.

Held. Registration is mandatory where the information discloses a cognizable offence, and no preliminary inquiry is permissible in that situation. A preliminary inquiry is permitted only where the information does not disclose a cognizable offence but indicates that an inquiry is needed, and its scope is only to find out whether a cognizable offence is disclosed, never to test whether the information is true. Such an inquiry must be completed within seven days. If it discloses a cognizable offence the report must be registered; if it ends in closure, the informant must be given a copy of the closure entry with brief reasons within one week. The Court gave illustrative categories in which a preliminary inquiry may be appropriate.