Bounced cheques: Registration of FIRs being delayed for months

Experts say investigation requirement before filing of FIR is illegal.


Rameez Khan May 28, 2011

LAHORE:


Complainants are being forced to wait for up to three months before the registration of first information reports (FIRs) concerning bounced cheques because of lengthy police procedures added by the previous city police chief for the lodging of such cases, The Express Tribune has learnt.


Former capital city police officer Aslam Tareen had ordered that before the registration of any FIR under Section 489 F, the superintendent of police (SP) for operations and sub divisional police officer (SDPO) concerned conduct parallel inquiries into the matter. The SP (Operations) would then direct the station house officer (SHO) concerned whether or not to register the case. SHOs are not allowed to register such cases directly.

Two weeks ago, the reader branch of the deputy inspector general (DIG) for investigations sent out a form to the reader branch of all divisional SPs to flag cheque bounce cases that had been registered directly by SHOs rather than after inquiry by senior officers.

Muhammad Atif Nazar, a resident of Lawrance Road, said he had been trying for three months to get an FIR registered against his business partner, who allegedly wrote him a bogus cheque for Rs2.8 millions. “I have been running from pillar to post for three months,” he said “Sometimes they say an inquiry will be conducted, sometimes that the other party is not appearing, sometimes that the SDPO is busy. Now a sub inspector has been asking me for bribes.”Syed Talha Mehmood said an FIR was registered two months and 20 days after his complaint. He said that he was pressed for a bribe on several occasions, until he told the SHO he was going to file a complaint at the inspector general’s (IG) office. “They started cooperating with me after that,” he said.

An SP told The Express Tribune that he believed that the extra procedures were illegal, as Section 154 of the Criminal Procedure Code instructed the police to file an FIR immediately upon receiving a complaint from a citizen. A delay in filing an FIR could land the officer in trouble under Section 155C of the Police Order of 2002. “FIRs should be lodged as soon as the complainant appears with the cheque bounce slip from the bank,” he said.

Advocate Muhammad Azhar Siddique said that there was no provision in the law allowing the police to conduct an inquiry before lodging an FIR. “It’s totally illegal,” he said.

He said that an inquiry was necessary before the filing the challan to the court under Section 173 of the CrPC. He said that the police should change the procedure for filing FIRs of bounced cheques as it violated the fundamental rights of citizens.

SSP Faisal Rana said that the procedure was adopted to curb the registration of fake FIRs, as bounced cheques were one of the most common crimes. “A lot of the FIRs that were being lodged were fake,” he said.

Rana said that there was no need for three-month delays, as inquiries could be conducted in two days as well. “There is no rocket science involved that it should take so long,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29th, 2011.

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