Aastha Thakur
Published on: 12 September, 2022 at 17:39 IST
The Madras High Court has ordered the police authorities to abide by the rules and call people for inquiries or investigations by issuing a formal summons with a date and time for an appearance.
Justice G K Ilanthiraiyan issued set of guidelines while disposing of a criminal original petition from S Prakash and three others from Tiruppur, on September 8. The judge directed the police to strictly adhere by the rules in order to summon any person to police station.
The judge stated that, “While summoning anyone named in a complaint or a witness, the police should do so through a written summons under Section 160 CrPC specifying a particular date and time for appearing before them for such enquiry/investigation,”
He also asks the police officials to maintain a record of the minutes of the enquiry in the general diary/station diary/daily diary and the police officers are prohibited from harassing persons called for inquiry or investigation purposes.
The guidelines highlighted by the Supreme Court in the case of Lalitha Kumari vs. Government of Uttar Pradesh regarding preliminary enquiry or registration of FIR need to be stringently adhered to. The directions were issued on the petitions alleging police torture in the name of inquiry.
Furthermore, the Court underlined that the powers of the investigation officer in cases of enquiry into either non-cognizable or cognizable objects are unregulated as long as they legally follow the statutory provisions given under Chapter XII of CrPC.
Although the CrPC gives the Magistrate the authority to be a guardian throughout all phases of a police investigation, he added that he has no authority to interfere with the investigation itself or the way it is conducted. In light of this, he said, numerous petitions alleging harassment are being reported and brought before this Court in an effort to get something done.
Even while the court would typically not intervene with the police’s investigation, he noted that if harassment by the police occurred while they were conducting an investigation, the court would not ignore the situation.