Refusal to register FIR: legal or illegal?

The foremost question that arises here is, whether the officer-in-charge of the police station can deny
registering the FIR in any circumstance? The answer to this is affirmative. The denial by the police officer
to file an FIR is considered legal typically in two scenarios, firstly, if the complaint is about an awfully
trivial issue, or secondly, if that particular police station does not have the territorial jurisdiction of that
offence.

With regards to the first situation, it is unusual for a cognizable offence to be a nugatory matter so this
condition would hardly apply here. However, the refusal to register FIR based on the second ground is
pretty common and the solution to which is the “Zero FIR”. The concept of a Zero FIR is that if a person
is unable to file an FIR in the police station with correct territorial jurisdiction for a particular offence due
to any reason, then he may file the same in any other police station within his/her reach, and such
police station would later transfer the report to the police station which actually has the jurisdiction for
that offence. However, if the police officer refuses to lodge the report on some unexplainable grounds
or even without giving any reason, it’d definitely be considered illegal. Then the aggrieved would have to
seek remedy for the same as provided under the law, which has been discussed next.

Statutory Remedy

As provided by Clause (3) of Section 154 of Cr.P.C., if a person is refused by an officer-in-charge of a

police station to register his report, then such person has an option to send the content of the
information of crime in written form to the concerned Superintendent of Police via post so that the
information could be recorded and investigated upon.

After receiving the information, if the SP is contended with regards to the disclosure of a cognizable
offence based on such information, then he would either examine the case by himself or command any
other subordinate police officer to do the same in accordance with the Code. Also, the investigating
officer would have the same powers as the officer-in-charge of the police station with respect to the
investigation.

Judicial Remedy

If the remedy u/s 154(3) Cr.P.C. doesn’t prove to be effective, then the informant is advised to directly
file a private complaint before the concerned Judicial Magistrate under Section 156(3) r/w Section 190
of the Criminal Procedure Code. Under this, the said Magistrate is empowered to take the cognizance of
the case on receiving such a complaint and direct the police to investigate the case.