A cryptic phone call to Police without complete information about the offence cannot be treated as FIR: Supreme Court

A cryptic phone call without complete information or containing part-information about the commission of a cognizable offence cannot always be treated as an FIR, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday (Netaji Achyut Shinde v. State of Maharashtra)..A Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao, Hemant Gupta and S Ravindra Bhat reiterated the law laid down in this regard in the 2001 case of TT Antony v. State of Kerala and 2004 judgment in Damodar v. State of Rajasthan.“A mere message or a telephonic message which does not clearly specify the offence, cannot be treated as an FIR,” the Court held.Applying the same to the instant case, the Court ruled that a mere entry in the police case diary stating that two informers telephonically informed that two persons arrived on a motorcycle and assaulted one individual at the corner of municipal council complex cannot be treated as FIR..The Court was hearing a plea against a judgment of the Bombay High Court convicting the three appellants for murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.The case against the accused was that on July 5, 2011, they assaulted the deceased, Suhas and inflicted serious injuries with a sword as well as by fist blows and kicks.FIR was registered at 11.45 PM at Kallam police station..One appellant, the second accused Samadhan Shinde, was convicted by the trial court, while the other two were acquitted. These acquittals were reversed by the High Court which convicted all the accused leading to the appeal before the Supreme Court.The defence of the accused was denial, and that they were falsely implicated due to political enmity and property dispute.One of the arguments put forth by the accused was that two individuals Ravi Hakar and and Vishwajeet Thombre had telephonically informed the Police Station about the crime at around 5.30 pm. This initial information talked of an attack on a motorcycle ridden by two persons..This was recorded and entered in the case diary though no formal FIR was lodged.It was contended that when FIR was finally registered at 11.45 pm this version disappeared and an improvement, which had involved other accused in order that they be implicated, was registered.It was stated that the intervening time between the initial intimation and the recording of actual FIR was spent in spinning a yarn, and seeking support from entirely partisan witnesses who were in fact not witnesses to the incident, and were in some manner connected to the deceased or his family..It was the argument of the accused that the first intimation of the crime was what constituted the first information report (FIR) and that the credibility of an “official” or formal FIR shown to have been registered later, is suspect as it affords considerable leeway to the police to cook up fictions and falsely implicate innocent persons.The trial court had accepted this argument but the High Court had not.The Supreme Court turned down this argument holding that the intimation given by the two individuals, Ravi Harkar and Vishwajeet Thombre merely set out the bare facts of an attack..The Court noted that information was incomplete; neither the name of the victim nor the names of the alleged attackers nor even the precise location where the incident occurred were mentioned.A cryptic phone call without complete information or containing part-information about the commission of a cognizable offence cannot always be treated as an FIR as accepted by the Supreme Court in TT Antony and Damodar cases, the Court underscored..“Applying the tests indicated by the judgments of the Supreme Court (in TT Antony and Damodar) , this court is of the opinion that the High Court, in the appeal before it, correctly inferred that the first information recorded at 17.45 hrs could not be treated as an FIR,” the judgment said..Further, the Court also concluded that there was no merit in the arguments that the police sought to improve the initial version and somehow roped in the accused falsely.“Quite often, depending upon how and what people see and perceive about an incident, when they narrate it subsequently, the rendition might not be accurate in describing the sequence or even the facts completely. Much would depend on the relative distances and the angles where those individuals might have been placed or located, relative to the incident or event. Therefore, the inclusion or omission of more than two accused cannot be a matter of grave suspicion,” it concluded..The appeals were consequently dismissed..[Read Judgment]