Investigation before FIR

 INVESTIGATION BEFORE FIR AND POLICE POWER NOT TO CONDUCT INVESTIGATION.

If an information, regarding the commission of cognizable offence is received the officer in charge of police station shall reduce the same into writing which shall be signed by the informant. This information regarding commission of cognizable offence is commonly known as FIR.  If information regarding commission of non-cognizable offence is received the officer in charge of the police station shall enter it in a book to be kept for this purpose and refer the informant to the magistrate. From perusal of section 155 Cr.P.C. it follows that FIR is not registered regarding the commission of non-cognizable offence and under subsection (2) no investigation could be conducted regarding commission of non-cognizable offence without prior permission of magistrate. There is another situation in which the investigation can be conducted without recording of FIR. The opening sentence of Sec.157(1) Cr.P.C. states that “if from information received or otherwise, an officer in charge of police station has reason to suspect the commission of offence” is of great importance. The word information received or otherwise is indicative of the fact that the police can be aware of the suspicion of commission of offence without there being an information received as mentioned in section 154 and 155 Cr.P.C. In section 154 and 155 the information regarding commission of cognizable and non-cognizable offence has been mentioned but in section 157 suspicion about the commission of offence has been mentioned. E.g. if a police officer receives a tip off that an accused is transporting the narcotics substance on which such a officer conducts a raid, recovers the narcotics and takes it into possession through sealed parcels and arrest the accused and then sends the information to the police station for formal registration of FIR and in this way he has commenced the investigation prior to the recording of FIR. The word “otherwise” mentioned in section 157 Cr.P.C. empowers the police in above like situation to conduct investigation before registration of case. It was held in 1968 P.Cr.L.J. 720, NLR 1995 SD 217, PLD 1994 Lah.485 that receipt and recording of FIR is not a condition precedent to setting in motion of criminal investigation and illegality committed in this respect does not per se vitiate the arrest or the trial. It was held in 1993 Cr.L.J. 859 (SC) that Sec.157(1) Cr.P.C. requires an officer incharge of a police station who from information received or otherwise has reason to suspect the commission of an offence that is a cognizable offence, he can investigate the matter u/s 156. The expression reason to suspect as occurring in section 157(1) is not qualified as in section 41(a) and (g) of the code wherein the expression, “reasonable suspicion” is used. Therefore what section 157(1) requires is that the police officer should have reason to suspect with regard to the commission of an offence. In such eventuality police can dispense with investigation under section 157 Cr.P.C when police have suspicion of commission of offence and cannot dispense with investigation when police receive information about commission of cognizance or non cognizable offence.