Police complaints could be treated as FIRs, home ministry’s plan

NEW DELHI - In the wake of complaints from people that police were reluctant to register FIRS, the home ministry is considering treating complaints to the police stations as compulsory FIRs.

According to an official source, this follows “after the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case in which the complainants said that police were unwilling to register a complaint against (former Haryana police chief S.P.S.) Rathore”.

Home Minister P. Chidambaram in his speech at the 22nd Intelligence Bureau Centenary Endowment lecture here Dec 23 had said he would prefer registration of cases as FIRs, as otherwise this would lead to a bad image of the police.

According to Ruchika’s family, when they wanted to file a complaint against Rathore in 1990, police had initially refused to register a First Information Report. Later also, when her brother was slapped with false cases of auto theft and harassed and the family wanted to file a complaint, the police had refused to register a case.

In the proposed amendment to the CrPC, the government reportedly wants to make it mandatory for the police station in charge to give reasons for not registering a complaint.