There can’t be probe without FIR

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police’s reluctance to open an FIR and initiate a probe into the suicide by a senior bureaucrat and his 30-yearold son, who alleged harassment by the CBI, violates the law and the Supreme Court’s ruling that says cases must be registered in all “cognizable offences”.

Indisputably, the two deaths in question are unnatural. There are only two possibilities – either they were murdered or they committed suicide. Going by the police version of the incident, former director general in corporate affairs ministry BK Bansal and his son Yogesh allegedly committed suicide due to “harassment” by some CBI officials investigating the bureaucrat in a corruption case. This is based on hand-written suicide notes purportedly left by the father-son duo.

The veracity of the allegations levelled in the suicide notes can be determined only through a thorough probe which cannot take off without registering an FIR.

Both murder and abetment of suicide are cognizable and nonbailable offences and according to Section 154 of the Criminal Procedure Code, police are dutybound to lodge an FIR in every cognizable case.

In Lalita Kumari’s case, a fivejudge Constitution Bench ruled in 2013 that “Registration of FIR is mandatory under Section 154 of the Code, if the information discloses commission of a cognizable offence and no preliminary inquiry is permissible in such a situation.”

It said: “If information received does not disclose a cognizable offence but indicates the necessity for an inquiry, a preliminary probe may be held to ascertain whether cognizable offence is disclosed or not.”