The Supreme Court has declared that information revealing the commission of a cognizable offense must be officially recorded as a First Information Report (FIR) in the designated FIR book, rather than being documented in the General Diary maintained by the Police under the Police Act, 1861. This legal interpretation, outlined by the Bench consisting of Justices MM Sudresh and SVN Bhatti, is rooted in the pivotal case of Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh & Others (2014) 2 SCC 1.
The Constitution Bench, while deliberating on whether information about a cognizable offense should be entered into the General Diary or the FIR book, conducted a thorough analysis of the interplay between Section 154 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and Section 44 of the Police Act, 1861. The Court also delved into the legislative history of the CrPC 1861, CrPC 1973, and the Police Act 1861 to provide a comprehensive response.
The Court's judgment elucidated that, according to Lalita Kumari (para 70), any inconsistency between Section 154 of the CrPC and Section 44 of the Police Act, 1861, or similar provisions in other states, would result in the primacy of the CrPC. Consequently, the provisions of Section 44 of the Police Act, 1861, or equivalent provisions in other states, would be void to the extent of repugnancy. The Court emphasized that, as per Section 154 of the CrPC, the FIR is mandated to be recorded in the FIR book. Therefore, it is unequivocally established that a General Diary entry cannot precede the registration of an FIR, except in cases where a preliminary inquiry is deemed necessary.
It was pointed out that FIR book is maintained with its number given on an annual basis. This means that each FIR has a unique annual number given to it. This is on similar lines as the case numbers given in courts. Due to this reason, it is possible to keep a strict control and track over the registration of FIRs by the supervisory police officers and by the courts, wherever necessary. Copy of each FIR is sent to the superior officers and to the Judicial Magistrate concerned.
On the other hand, General Diary contains a huge number of other details of the proceedings of each day. Copy of General Diary is not sent to the Judicial Magistrate having jurisdiction over the police station, though its copy is sent to a superior police officer. Thus, it is not possible to keep strict control of each and every FIR recorded in the General Diary by the superior police officers and/or the court in view of enormous amount of other details mentioned therein and the numbers changing every day.
The signature of the complainant is obtained in the FIR book as and when the complaint is given to the police station. On the other hand, there is no such requirement of obtaining signature of the complainant in the General Diary. Moreover, at times, the complaint given may consist of large number of pages, in which case it is only the gist of the complaint which is to be recorded in the General Diary and not the full complaint. This does not fit in with the suggestion that what is recorded in the General Diary should be considered to be the fulfilment/compliance with the requirement of Section 154 of registration of FIR. In fact, the usual practice is to record the complete complaint in the FIR book (or annex it with the FIR form) but record only about one or two paragraphs (gist of the information) in the General Diary.
If at all, there is any inconsistency in the provisions of Section 154 of the Code and Section 44 of the Police Act, 1861, with regard to the fact as to whether the FIR is to be registered in the FIR book or in the General Diary, the provisions of Section 154 of the Code will prevail and the provisions of Section 44 of the Police Act, 1861 (or similar provisions of the respective corresponding Police Act or Rules in other respective States) shall be void to the extent of the repugnancy. Thus, FIR is to be recorded in the FIR book, as mandated under Section 154 of the Code, and it is not correct to state that information will be first recorded in the General Diary and only after preliminary inquiry, if required, the information will be registered as FIR. It is thus unequivocally clear that registration of FIR is mandatory and also that it is to be recorded in the FIR book by giving a unique annual number to each FIR to enable strict tracking of each and every registered FIR by the superior police officers as well as by the competent court to which copies of each FIR are required to be sent. The Code contemplates two kinds of FIRs : the duly signed FIR under Section 154(1) is by the informant to the officer concerned at the police station. The second kind of FIR could be which is registered by the police itself on any information received or other than by way of an informant [Section 157(1)] and even this information has to be duly recorded and the copy should be sent to the Magistrate forthwith.
The registration of FIR either on the basis of the information furnished by the informant under Section 154(1) of the Code or otherwise under Section 157(1) of the Code is obligatory. The obligation to register FIR has inherent advantages: (a) It is the first step to “access to justice” for a victim. (b) It upholds the “rule of law” inasmuch as the ordinary person brings forth the commission of a cognizable crime in the knowledge of the State. (c) It also facilitates swift investigation and sometimes even prevention of the crime. In both cases, it only effectuates the regime of law. ( d) It leads to less manipulation in criminal cases and lessens incidents of “antedated” FIR or deliberately delayed FIR.”