The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to entertain former Delhi mayor Farhad Suri’s petition seeking registration of a case against Ghaziabad police over a midnight raid at his Nizamuddin East residence last month, but permitted him to approach the Delhi Police under the statutory procedure.
Suri, in his petition, claimed the Ghaziabad police team arrived at his residence without a valid warrant. He later learnt from local police that the raid was related to Upadhyay – who broke the Ram Mandir donation theft story, and is separately facing a road-rage case and has been granted protection from arrest by the Supreme Court. Suri, a Congress leader, had filed the petition through advocate Anoop Prakash Awasthi seeking registration of a criminal case against the police officials and an independent investigation into the incident. He also sought guidelines governing inter-state police raids, a request the court declined to entertain. Upadhyay has separately challenged the FIR in the road-rage case.
The raid at Suri’s residence on the intervening night of August 22 and 23 was allegedly carried out by a Ghaziabad police team in connection with a case against journalist Abhishek Upadhyay, who is accused in a road-rage case. He confirmed that the police team had visited the area to ascertain Upadhyay’s whereabouts after his location was found to be within about 200 metres of the nearest mobile tower close to Suri’s residence. On August 25, the Supreme Court granted him protection from arrest and directed Uttar Pradesh Police to provide him a copy of the FIR, which alleges that he abused a motorist after colliding with his car in Ghaziabad.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant said statutory remedies were available under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and declined Suri’s plea seeking an independent probe and guidelines governing police raids. When he questioned the officers, he was allegedly told they were looking for a murder accused in a case registered at Indirapuram. Uttar Pradesh additional advocate general Sharan Dev Singh Thakur told the court that the petition amounted to an abuse of writ jurisdiction as the BNSS provided a procedure for seeking registration of an FIR. He said local police had been informed about the visit and two Delhi Police officials had accompanied the Uttar Pradesh team.
Section 175(3) provides that if police refuse to register an FIR, a complainant may approach a magistrate, who can, after making an inquiry and hearing the police officer concerned, order an investigation if satisfied that a case for inquiry is made out.
