The maintenance and extension of a history sheet by police must adhere to the Police Standing Orders and principles of fairness, as arbitrary retention violates the fundamental right to dignity and privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

ORDER

Seeking to direct the respondents 1 and 2 to remove petitioner name from the History Sheet No.40 of 2025 in the light of petitioner's representation dated 13.04.2026, this writ petition is filed.

2. The petitioner has sent a representation on 13.04.2026 to the 1st and 2nd respondents seeking to remove his name from the History Sheet No.40 of 2025. Since the same was not considered, this writ petition is filed.

3. The issue involved in this writ petition has already been dealt with by the Madurai Bench of this Court and detailed order has been passed in W.P. (MD)No.19651 of 2017 on 26.09.2018. On the basis of the above said Order, the Director General Of Police, Chennai issued a circular in Rc.No. 66569/Crime 3(2)/2019 dated 24.04.2019, which reads as follows :-

“7. From the above judgments the following principles emerge insofar as history sheeters are concerned:

a. In order to facilitate the study of crime and criminals, the Police Standing Orders provides a mechanism, whereby every Police Station shall maintain a crime history, which shall be a confidential record. In this record all cases of crime that are mentioned in PSO No.742, which provides various classes of crime, shall be entered and even an attempt to commit those offences, are entered in the records maintained in the Police Station.

b. These crime records maintained by the Various Police Stations shall be reviewed every year by the Inspector of Police of the concerned Police Station. On such review, the Inspector of Police has to furnish a concise appreciation of the year's crime for the benefit of the Superior Officers and also to make suggestions in order to improve the quality of crime control. The review undertaken by the Inspector of Police is not merely a catalogue of the crime in the year. It should reflect the valuable suggestions in order to prevent such crimes in future and to provide ways and means of handling serious offences in an effective manner.

c. History Sheet can be opened by the concerned Police Station under two circumstances. The first circumstance is provided under PSO No.746, which states that the history sheet can be opened against a person who is a resident (permanently or temporarily) within the station limit, who is known or believed to be addicted to commission of crime, whether convicted or not. Here the thrust is on the habituality or the propensity to commit a crime by a person, which is sought to be monitored by opening a history sheet.

d. The second category of persons against whom history sheet can be opened are the persons, who are convicted for various offences that has been listed in PSO No.747, wherein opening of the history sheet is automatic.

e. In the first category of opening history sheet, month wise scrutiny or a close watch on the person concerned is contemplated. Here also there is sub-categorization as, close watch bad characters and non-close watch bad characters. In the former, the entry shall be made month wise and in the later, the entry shall be made once in a quarter. What is entered is normally anything of interest in respect of the bad character, which goes to the notice of the Police. These records must be checked and brought up to date once in a year. Here the main thrust is on "Current Doings".

f. In the second category of opening history sheet, a mere act of conviction under the offences listed in PSO No.747 is enough. The name of the persons, who have been convicted for those offences can be retained for a period of two years after their release from jail.

g. PSO No.748, is the most i