Registration Of Crime By Police Without Material Allegation To Constitute Cognisable Offence Creates Impression Of Kakistocracy, May Lead To Anarchy: AP HC [Read Petition]

The Andhra Pradesh High Court has observed that the registration of a crime without any material allegation to constitute cognizable offence, and harassing the public in the guise of investigation may lead to anarchy.Justice M. Satyanarayan Murthy reflected that such acts of the police department create an impression that the people are living in a "kakistocracy", though they are living in a democracy. The Single Judge remarked that it also reflects the lack of minimum knowledge about law, giving an impression that the department is manned by an officer without any administrative control.The Single Bench was hearing the Managing Director of a popular web portal "Telugu One.com" for the quashing of the FIR registered by the state CID against him for the offences punishable under Sections 188, 505 (2), and 506 of I.P.C. and Section 54 of the Disaster Management Act, 2005. A complaint had been lodged by one to the Additional Director General of Police, CID, Andhra Pradesh alleging that while he was watching Telugu One Channel in Youtube, he noticed a false and fabricated audio clip is being circulating in social media against the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and that the said news item was posted for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, anger, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, hatred, ill will against the government and the Chief Minister and the same has created panic in the minds of the people that state is unsafe during the COVID Pandamic. It was further alleged that the fabricated audio clip is appearing in multiple platforms like whatsapp, twitter, facebook, tik tak, youtube and help app, to mislead the public and make them nurse ill will, hatred against YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, his family, the A.P. Government and Y.S.R.Congress Party. "Everyone knows about the unpleasant relationship between police and community which creates difficulties during investigation. Police expect that all difficulties in society should be solved by the police, but the basic duty of police is protection of human life, liberty and property and enforcement of law and order", said the judge.The bench proceeded to observe that increasing crime, growing pressure of living, rising population, labour disputes, problems of students, political activities with the call of extremists, enforcement of social and economic legislation etc. have added a new dimension of police tasks in the Country. The lack of public co- operation in police work makes it difficult to discharge their function efficiently. "It is common fact that law-abiding citizens have greater fear for police than offenders and do not hesitate to use violence, undue influence to secure their escape, threats etc. On the other hand normal people avoid contact with the public and prefer to keep away from law courts even at the loss of suffering or loss of legitimate claims rather than reporting matter to the police for their action", noted the bench.Noting that it is of the utmost importance that people entrusted with the investigation must be scrupulously honest and efficient, otherwise cases both of innocent persons being wrongly convicted and of really guilty persons being wrongly let off are likely to occur, the bench said it is imperative on the part of the police to conduct investigation in a fair manner to see that no innocent be convicted by fabricating any evidence during investigation.Action of the police nothing but over-enthusiasm to please the party in power - While political parties may come and go, police officials are a permanent in the service of the state governmentUpon the facts of the present case, the bench ruled that the allegations made in the complaint must necessarily disclose such publication, statement or circulation of such statement containing rumour or alarming news among the public based on religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community. But in the absence of feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities, the very registration of crime for the offence punishable under Section 505 (2) of I.P.C. is illegal. "I find no such two groups and such statement creates or likely to create any ill-will or hatred between two groups or classes on the basis of race, religion etc., but the allegation in the complaint is that the postings in Youtube is only to insult the government and the present Chief Minister", said the bench, adding that the Government and the Chief Minister cannot constitute as one group or two groups since the Government is manned by Chief Minister being a people's representative. The bench said that in the absence of any other group, creation of such enmity, ill-will etc. on the basis of religion etc., the allegation does not constitute an offence punishable under Section 505 (2) of I.P.C. "But the CID being the instrumentality of the State working under the thumb of the State, for the reasons best known to them by...

Registration Of Crime By Police Without Material Allegation To Constitute Cognisable Offence Creates Impression Of Kakistocracy, May Lead To Anarchy: AP HC [Read Petition]

Mehal Jain

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