TMI Blog2004 (9) TMI 689X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he Sikhera Police Station in the village Fahimpur Kalan. In the said complaint appellant herein and some others persons were arrayed as accused. On the basis of the said complaint the police registered a Crime under Sections 452 and 307 IPC against the appellant and other named persons therein in Crime No. 48 of 1995 of that Police Station. 3. Appellant alleges that he too lodged a complaint in regard to the very same offence against the respondents herein for having committed offences punishable under Sections 506 and 307 IPC as against him and his family members but since the said complaint was not entertained by the police concerned, he tried to approach the Superintendent of Police and District Magistrate and having tailed in his attempts to get his complaint registered he filed petition under Section 156(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code before the Judicial Magistrate, Muzaffarnagar. 4. The learned Magistrate having found prima facie case as per his order dated 11th July, 1995 directed the police. Sekhera Police Station to register a Crime against the accused persons named in the said complaint of the appellant and to investigate the same and submit a report ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... could be seen from the following observations of the High Court found in the impugned judgment now before us :- Of course two F.I.Rs are not permissible in respect to one and same incident because the subsequent F.I.R. is hit by Section 162 Cr. P.C . 9. By the time this appeal came to be considered for grant of leave by this Court on 21st of March, 2002, this Court had delivered the judgment in T.T. Antony's case wherein this Court framed the following question among others for consideration :- (i) Whether registration of a fresh case, Crime No. 268 of 1997 which is in the nature of second FIR under Section 154 Cr. P.C. was valid and could form the basis of a fresh investigation? 10. Answering the above question this Court held :- In such a case he need not enter every One of them in the station house diary and this is implied in Section 154 Cr.PC. Apart from a vague information by a phone call or a cryptic telegram, the information first entered in the station house diary, kept for this purpose, by a police officer in charge of a police station is the first information report FIR postulated by Section 154 Cr.PC. All other informa ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ime No. 354 of 1994 under Sections 143, 147, 148, 307 and 427 read with Section 149 IPC and other offences named therein. Both the offences were registered on the date of incident itself. 14. During the pendency of the said cases the political Government of the State changed and the new Government appointed a Commission of Inquiry and on the report of the Commission, an investigation was directed to be conducted by the Deputy Inspector General of Police concerned who after urgent personal investigation registered Crime No. 268 of 1997 under Section 302 IPC against the Minister who was present at the time of the incident the Deputy Superintendent of Police, the Executive Magistrate who ordered the tiring and certain police constables. 15. The registration of the said crime came to be challenged before the High Court by way of a writ petition and learned Single Judge of the High Court directed the case to be re-investigated by CBI. But in a writ appeal the Division Bench of the High Court quashed the FIR in Crime No. 268 of 1997 as against the Additional Superintendent of Police but it directed a fresh investigation by the State police headed by one of the three Sen ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e 1st complaint or on his behalf alleging a different version of the said incident. 18. This Court in Kari Choudhary v. Mst Site Devi and Ors. 2002CriLJ923 discussing this aspect of law held :- Learned counsel adopted an alternative contention that once the proceedings initiated under FIR No. 135 ended in a final report the police had no authority to register a second FIR and number it as FIR No. 208. Of course the legal position is that there cannot be two FIRs against the same accused in respect of the same case. But when there are rival versions in respect of the same episode, they would normally take the shape of two different FIRs and investigation can be curried on under both of them by the same investigating agency. Even that apart, the report submitted to the court styling it as FIR No. 208 of 1998 need be considered as an information submitted to the court regarding the new discovery made by the police during investigation that persons not named in FIR No. 135 are the real culprits. To quash the said proceedings merely on the ground that final report had been laid in FIR No. 135 is to say the least, too technical. The ultimate object of every investigati ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n Ram Lal Narang vs. State (Delhi Administration) 1979CriLJ1346 also shows that even in cases where a prior complaint is already registered, a counter complaint is permissible but it goes further and holds that even in cases where a 1st complaint is registered and investigation initiated, it is possible to file a further complaint by the same complainant based on the material gathered during the course of investigation. Of course, this larger proposition of law laid down in Ram Lal Narang's case is not necessary to be relied on by us in the present case. Suffice it to say that the discussion in Ram Lal Narang's case is in the same line as found in the judgments in Kari Choudhary and State of Bihar v. J.A.C. Saldanna (supra). However, it must be noticed that in T.T. Antony's case Ram Lal Narang's case was noticed but the Court did not express any opinion either way. 23. Be that as it may, if the law laid down by this Court in T.T. Antony's case is to be accepted as holding a second complaint in regard to the same incident filed as a counter complaint is prohibited under the Code then, in our opinion, such conclusion would lead to serious consequences. Th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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