Short essay on First Information Report

First Information Report is briefly referred as FIR. Section 154, Cr.P.C. defines the FIR and explains its efficacy and importance. Every information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence, if given orally to an officer-in-charge of a police station, shall be reduced into writing by him or under his direction. It should be read over to the informant.

The informant should sign such written information, or such oral information which is reduced into writing. The information should then be entered in the FIR register maintained at every police station.

In accordance with the Police Standing Orders in the state of Andhra Pradesh, now a copy of FIR should be furnished to the informant free of cost.

Section 154 Cr.P.C. deal with information regarding cognizable offences and Section 156 Cr.P.C. deal with the investigation in respect of cognizable offences.

The section does not ordain that the information about the commission of a cognizable offence shall be made only to an officer in charge of a police station.

In Emperor vs. Khwaja Nazir Ahmed [AIR 1945 P.C. 18] the Court held that the receipt and recording of first information report by the police is not a condition precedent to the setting in motion of a criminal investigation.

First information report is a report relating to the commission of an offence given to the police and recorded by it under Sec. 154.

The object of insisting upon prompt lodging of the report to the police in respect of commission of an offence is to obtain early information regarding the circumstances in which the crime was committed, the names of the actual culprits and the part played by them as well as the names of eye-witnesses present at the scene of occurrence.

Delay in lodging the FIR quite often results in embellishment which is a creature of afterthought.

It was pointed out in Nagireddi vs. State of A.P. [(1968)1 An.W.R. 178] that FIR is a valuable piece of evidence inasmuch as it is the earliest version that can be compared with what is later told during the trial.

It being the first version of the case it is strongest weapon in the hands of the defence to test the veracity of the maker by contradicting him with reference to the first version.

The principal object of FIR is to set the criminal law in motion from the point of the informant and to obtain information about an alleged crime. There is a plethora of decisions to show that FIR is not a substantive piece of evidence and that it can be used only for the purpose of corroboration under Section 157, Evidence Act or for contradiction under Section 145, Evidence Act. (Nankhu Singh vs. State of Bihar, AIR 1973 SC 491; Apren Joseph vs. State of Kerala: AIR 1973 SC 1).

Several incidental questions arise on the practical side regarding the appreciation of FIR, and its relevancy and efficacy.