TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: Advocate General Atmaram Nadkarni’s legal opinion that nothing stops the police from registering an FIR in a cognizable offence has not helped resolve the standoff between the men-in-uniform and the office of District Collector South over registering FIRs against erring landlords for renting out their premises without intimating the police station.
While the number of complaints despatched by the police to the District Magistrate’s office to file FIRs against landlords rose to 10, there’s no change in the District Magistrate’s office stand that AG Nadkarni’s opinion clearly cast responsibility on the police to register FIRs against the erring landlords.
In his opinion submitted to the Chief Minister, the Advocate General had opined: “I am of the considered opinion that in the case of a cognizable offence, nothing stops the police from exercising their statutory powers of investigating into the same, registering an FIR and it is only once a charge-sheet has been filed and upon completion of the investigation into such an offence, the court is inclined to take cognisance under section 190 of Cr PC, that the public servant concerned or some other public servant to whom he is administratively subordinate, would be certainly required to file a complaint in writing to that effect”.
District police chief South Shekhar Prabhudessai, however, said that the north Goa Collectorate follows a system wherein the Sub-divisional Magistrate files the FIRs upon police complaints. That the Maina-Curtorim police have so far despatched 10 complaints before the Collectorate to file FIRs against the landlords for violating District Magistrate’s order clearly indicates that the police are in no mood to comply with the Advocate General’s opinion on the controversy.
Acting District Magistrate Venancio Furtado said he would hold discussions with the district police chief on how to break the impasse over the issue. When his attention was drawn to the fact that the police-district magistrate standoff had helped many erring landlords to violate the District Magistrate’s order under section 144 of Cr PC with impunity, Furtado said, “I think the Advocate General’s opinion should put at rest the controversy. I will soon call a meeting with the district police chief for discussions over the issue”.
Incidentally, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had referred the matter to the Advocate General following a difference of opinion expressed by the Law Department, Director of Prosecution and the Home Department. What’s interesting to note is that though Additional Secretary Home Sanjiv Gadkar had referred the Advocate General’s legal opinion to the police department for strict compliance, the South Goa police continues to insist that the police cannot suo moto register FIRs against violators of the magistrate’s order issued under section 144 of Cr PC.
