Lucknow, February 21 The Allahabad High Court has directed the Superintendent of Police of Bahraich district to explain the "inconsistencies" in a First Information Report (FIR) in a case involving the slaughter of a cow, stating that it is time for courts to intervene and put a check on the "fanciful and highly exaggerated" FIRs registered by authorities.
Protecting the petitioner from arrest, the Lucknow bench of Justices Abdul Moin and PK Srivastava said that if the Superintendent of Police (SP) did not file his personal affidavit, he would have to appear in court along with all the records of the case.
The bench has fixed March 16 as the next date of hearing in the matter.
The order was passed on February 16 in response to a writ petition filed by Akbar Ali, who had challenged the FIR registered with the Jarwal Road police station in Bahraich on January 22.
Following a tip-off, a police party had arrested three persons on allegations of cow slaughter and attempted murder. While three were apprehended on the spot, the fourth had fled from the crime scene. Later, these individuals also named Ali in the crime.
While examining the FIR, the bench found that the FIR stated that the incident occurred at 10:45 am, and when the police party arrived at the scene, Ali and others were heard saying that they should run away as "it was going to be dawn."
The bench was surprised by the claim that "dawn was to break at 10:45 am."
The bench also noted some routine remarks mentioned in the FIR and said that they appeared to be from a movie script.
Expressing displeasure over the manner in which the FIR was registered in the case, the bench observed, "Time and again this court has pointed out that the language being used in the FIRs does not reflect the ground reality, rather appears to be hearsay, scripted, and appears to be heavily borrowed from movie scripts and is fanciful and highly exaggerated."
The bench added, "It is time for the courts to intervene and put a check on the fanciful and highly exaggerated FIRs which are being lodged by the authorities, of which the case in hand is a blatant example."
