The court emphasized the necessity for Magistrates to follow prescribed legal procedures in taking cognizance on complaints against police reports.

ORDER

Dated this the 21^st day of January, 2026 The accused persons 1 and 2 in C.C No. 1449 of 2021 on the file of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Thalassery instituted on the basis of a private complaint. The offences alleged against the petitioners are under Sections 341 , 323, 324, 294(b), 506(ii)

and 447 r/w 34 of the IPC .

2. According to the learned counsel for the petitioners, originally the Panoor police registered Crime No. 80 of 2021 with respect to the very same incident and after investigation, filed Annexure A3 final report referring the above case as false. Further according to the learned counsel, the learned Magistrate without referring to Annexure A3 refer report and solely relying upon the statements given by the witnesses in the enquiry conducted by him, passed Annexure A5 order and took cognizance of the offences referred above against the petitioners. According to the learned counsel, Annexure A5 order passed without referring to Annexure A3 refer report, is liable to be set aside.

3. The petition was opposed by the learned Public Prosecutor.

4. On a perusal of Annexure A5 order passed by the learned Magistrate, it is evident that he has not referred Annexure A3 refer report. It appears that for taking cognizance of the offences referred above, the learned Magistrate has relied solely upon the statements of the complainant and the witnesses recorded under Section 200 of the Cr.P.C.

Parameswaran Nair

5. In the decision of this Court in v. Surendran [2009 (1) KLT 801], in Paragraph 18, this court held as follows :

“18. When the Magistrate issue notice to the complainant on receipt of the final report and grants opportunity to the complainant to show why cognizance of the offence is to be taken and the complainant files a protest complaint, it is to be treated only as his objections to the final report, stating his reasons why the report cannot be accepted. If the Magistrate records his statement and that of the witnesses and decides to take cognizance of the offence, after considering all the materials including the final report made by the police under sub-section 2 of S.173, it is advisable for the Magistrate to record that the final report is not accepted and on the entire materials he is of the opinion that there is ground to proceed and issue summons under S.204 of Code of Criminal Procedure. But the fact that no specific order was recorded that final report is not accepted or fact that the decision to take cognizance of the offence and issue process was recorded in the protest complaint, by themselves are not fatal, if the records show that Magistrate has considered all the relevant materials and applied his mind. If after complying these procedures, an order not to take cognizance is passed by the Magistrate, then a second complaint will lie, only if there was any manifest error or manifest miscarriage of justice in the previous order or the complainant relies on new facts or materials which was not to his knowledge or with reasonable diligence could not have brought forward in the previous proceedings."

6. Since in the instant case, the learned Magistrate passed Annexure A5 order without following the procedure laid down Parameswaran Nair in (supra), the said order liable to be set aside and the matter is liable to be remanded back to the learned Magistrate to pass appropriate orders afresh after complying with the procedures laid down in the above decision.

In the result, this Crl.M.C is allowed. Annexure A5 order is set side and the matter is remanded back to the learned Magistrate for fresh consideration in accordance with law.

Sd/-