Joginderpal Bedi vs State of Punjab and Others

R.P. Nagrath, J.—This petition u/s 482 Cr.P.C. has been filed by the petitioner seeking a direction to respondents No. 1 to 4 to take legal action on his representation dated 27.9.2013 (Annexure P-4) already made to respondent No. 2-Senior Superintendent of Police, Kapurthala. The contention of learned counsel for the petitioner is that a false declaration was filed by the respondent No. 5-Avtar Singh with the Electricity Department for obtaining connection by claiming that he is the owner of the properly which in fact is owned by the petitioner. The documents filed by this respondent with Electricity Department have also been relied upon by the petitioner. It is further contended that a civil litigation with regard to the property in question is pending consideration in Regular Second Appeal before this Court but in the said litigation respondent No. 5 is not a party.

After considering the facts of this case, I am of the considered view that various options are available to the petitioner to pursue his remedy of this nature. The offending documents relied by the petitioner seems to be of the year 2005.

Hon''ble Supreme Court in Sakiri Vasu Vs. State of U.P. and Others, , held that it is true that alternative remedy is not an absolute bar to a writ petition, but it is equally well settled that if there is an alternative remedy the High Court should not ordinarily interfere. It was further held as under:

In this connection we would like to state that if a person has a grievance that the police station is not registering his FIR u/s 154 Cr.P.C., then he can approach the Superintendent of Police u/s 154(3) Cr.P.C. 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 it no proper investigation is held, it is open to the aggrieved person to file an application u/s 156(3) Cr.P.C. before the learned Magistrate concerned. If such an application u/s 156(3) is filed before the Magistrate, the Magistrate can direct the FIR to be registered and also can direct a proper investigation to be made, in a case where, according to the aggrieved person, no proper investigation was made. The Magistrate can also under the same provision monitor the investigation to ensure a proper investigation.

We have elaborated on the above matter because we often find that when someone has a grievance that his FIR has not been registered at the police station and/or a proper investigation is not being done by the police, he rushes to the High Court to file a writ petition or a petition u/s 482 Cr.P.C. We are of the opinion that the High Court should not encourage this practice and should ordinarily refuse to interfere in such matters, and relegate the petitioner to his alternating remedy, firstly u/s 154(3) and Section 36 Cr.P.C. before the concerned police officers, and if that is of no avail, by approaching the concerned Magistrate u/s 156(3).

If a person has a grievance that his FIR has not been registered by the police station his first remedy is to approach the Superintendent of Police u/s 154(3) Cr.P.C. or other police officer referred to in Section 36 Cr.P.C. If despite approaching the Superintendent of Police or the officer referred to in Section 36 his grievance still persists, then he can approach a Magistrate u/s 156(3) Cr.P.C. instead of rushing to the High Court by way of a writ petition or a petition u/s 482 Cr.P.C. Moreover he has a further remedy of filing a criminal complaint u/s 200 Cr.P.C. Why then should writ petitions or Section 482 petitions be entertained when there are so many alternative remedies?

27. As we have already observed above, the Magistrate has very wide powers to direct registration of an FIR and to ensure a proper investigation, and for this purpose he can monitor the investigation to ensure that the investigation is done properly (though he cannot investigate himself). The High Court should discourage the practice of filing a writ petition or petition u/s 482 Cr.P.C. simply because a person has a grievance that his FIR has not been registered by the police, or after being registered, proper investigation has not been done by the police. For this grievance, the remedy lies under Sections 36 and 154(3) before the concerned police officers, and if that is of no avail, u/s 156(3) Cr.P.C. before the Magistrate or by filing a criminal complaint u/s 200 Cr.P.C. and not by filing a writ petition or a petition u/s 482 Cr.P.C.

In view of the above and keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the case, this matter does not need indulgence of this Court in exercise of its inherent powers u/s 482 Cr.P.C. it is however for the Magistrate to decide the appropriate course how to proceed in the complaint made to it, on application of mind whether proceed to take cognizance of the complaint or to take action u/s 156(3) Cr.P.C. The instant petition is disposed of with the above observations.