The Madras High Court Bench here on Tuesday reserved its judgement on a petition filed by a Tuticorin-based schoolteacher urging the court to recall orders passed by it on December 8 when a case seeking a direction to Sathankulam police to register a First Information Report (FIR) against Tourism Minister S.P. Shunmuganathan was closed.
Justice S. Vaidyanathan deferred his verdict without mentioning a date after hearing arguments advanced by senior counsel M. Ajmal Khan on behalf of the petitioner, advocate R. Anand for the Minister and Additional Advocate General K. Chellapandian for the police. The petitioner, S. Inbaraj (51), had claimed that the police had got the case closed through misrepresentation and fraud. According to him, the Minister had abused and intimidated him at Sathankulam bus stand on November 9. Since efforts taken by him to get a police case registered turned futile, he approached the High Court for a direction on December 5. The next day, a summons was served on him by Sathankulam police station asking him to appear for enquiry on December 9.
However, when the case came up before Mr. Justice Vaidyanathan on December 8, the police informed the court that an enquiry was conducted on the issue and the complaint was found to be false. Judge closed the petitioner’s case after observing that he could prefer a private complaint before the Judicial Magistrate concerned. The senior counsel contended that the police had played a fraud upon the court. He said the Code of Criminal Procedure as well as the latest judgement of the Supreme Court in Lalita Kumari’s case categorically stated that the veracity of a complaint, making out a cognisable offence, could be ascertained only after registering the FIR and not before that.
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“They (the police) cannot put the horse before the cart. It is their statutory duty to register the FIR and then enquire into the genuineness of the complaint,” he said. The Minister’s counsel said a Special Sub-Inspector had issued the summons to the complainant “by mistake” though it was actually an Inspector of Police who found the complaint to be false.