Name: P SENTHIL KUMAR AKA ‘CITIZEN’ SENTHIL

Complaint: Filed a petition with Aminjikarai police station about his missing purse on 27 January 2018

Status: RTI reply from the police says FIR filed before the court on 17 February 2019

RTI reply from court: FIR is filed before the court on 28 August 2019

It could have an easy process, or that is what Senthil Kumar aka ‘citizen’ Senthil from Ayyappanthangal thought when he went to Aminjikarai police station to lodge a complaint about his missing purse on 27 January 2018. Somebody had picked his pocket when he took his sister to a hospital. What the police had to do is the browse the CCTV and nab the accused, he thought.

But it took more than a year for the police to claim that they had registered an FIR, while the court says the FIR came before it another six months later though the police are expected to submit it in the court within 24 hours. For this, he had to file several petitions with police higher-ups and appeal for a court direction to register the FIR. After lodging the complaint, when

Senthil told the inspector that CCTV footage will be available at the hospital, Senthil was asked to get the footage by himself. Despite repeated requests and SMS requests to the police commissioner’s office, he could not get the FIR registered. After six months he went to Egmore court seeking a direction from the court for registering FIR in June that year. In November 2018 he got direction from the court.

As there was no information about FIR despite a court order, Senthil got to send a legal notice to the inspector in April for not registering FIR. He later lodged a private complaint against inspector at the Egmore court for not registering FIR.

As he was not given a copy of the FIR, he goes on sending RTI queries and he was told by the police that an FIR was filed before the court on 17 February 2019, while the court concerned said that the FIR was filed before it on 28 August 2019.