SC bars registering second FIR

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday, while declaring legal position regarding filing of second First Information Report (FIR), termed that no separate FIR is to be recorded for any new version of the same incident.

A seven-member larger bench, headed by acting Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa and comprising Justice Mushir Alam, Justice Maqbool Baqar, Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik, Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel and Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, announced the reserved judgment.

The verdict clearly maintained that no person is to be arrested straightaway only because he has been nominated as an accused person in an FIR until sufficient justification exists for his arrest and for such justification he is to be guided by the relevant provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 and the Police Rules, 1934.

According to the relevant provisions of the said Code and the Rules, a suspect is not to be arrested straightaway or as a matter of course and, unless the situation on the ground so warrants, the arrest is to be deferred till such time that sufficient material or evidence becomes available on the record of investigation prima facie satisfying the investigating officer regarding correctness of the allegations levelled against such suspect or regarding his involvement in the crime in issue.

The apex court declared that according to Section 154, CrPC, an FIR is only the first information to the local police about commission of a cognizable offence and nothing more.

If the information received by the local police about commission of a cognizable offence also contains a version as to how the relevant offence was committed, by whom it was committed and in which background it was committed, then that version of the incident is only the version of the informant and nothing more and such version is not to be unreservedly accepted by the investigating officer as the truth or the whole truth, the judgment added.

During the investigation conducted after registration of an FIR, the investigating officer may record any number of versions of the same incident brought to his notice by different persons which versions are to be recorded by him under Section 161, CrPC in the same case.

However, no separate FIR is to be recorded for any new version of the same incident brought to the notice of the investigating officer during the investigation of the case.

During the investigation, the investigating officer is obliged to investigate the matter from all possible angles and it is his duty to find out the truth of the matter under investigation however he shall not commit himself prematurely to any view of the facts for or against any person.

The office of this court shall send copies of this judgment to the Inspectors General of Police of all the provinces and the Islamabad Capital Territory who are directed to apprise all the Station House Officers of all the police stations in the country of the law declared by this court through the present judgment and to make sure that the law so declared is followed in its letter and spirit, the judgment read.

Ashtar Ausaf Ali, Attorney-General for Pakistan assisted by Barrister Asad Rahim, Muhammad Usman Rauf, Mirza Moiz Baig, Nousherwan Niazi, Qasim Ali Chauhan, Additional Advocate-General, Punjab, Advocate-General, Sindh, Zahid Yousaf Qureshi, Additional Advocate-General, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Ayaz Swati, Additional Advocate General, Balochistan and Tariq Mehmood Jehangiri, Advocate General, Islamabad, attended the case regarding registration of second FIR in respect of a police encounter wherein the son of Sughran Bibi, the petitioner, namely Mohsin Ali, was killed at the hands of the local police.