The Karnataka High Court has observed that summons issued by the police should include all relevant details of the alleged crime, while also providing interim guidelines to apply in the case of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). These observations were made by a bench consisting of Justice M Nagaprasanna in an order on July 19.
In this case, a senior journalist had been issued a notice to appear by the police via WhatsApp, which purported to be under Section 41(1) (a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), but not referring to a specific crime or filing of the First Information Report (FIR).
His counsel had argued that this section could not be invoked for notice in the absence of a registered crime. Later, a second notice was issued with a crime number attached. The counsel for the state argued that in the first notice, this had been inadvertently left out.
The bench observed, “The information to the citizen cannot be half baked; it must be in full. The notice must contain the crime number and the purpose for which he is being summoned. While it can be transmitted electronically, no fault can be found with that, but it should mention the crime number. The duty of the Station House Officer would not stop at mentioning crime number, but he should also attach to the communication, a copy of the FIR, so registered against the noticee, as power is available to summon the accused or any person in connection with a crime.”
Looking into how such matters would be applied under the new BNSS, the court said, “It, thus, becomes mandatory for a notice to be issued under Section 35 of the BNSS to mention the crime number, the offence alleged in the crime so registered and necessarily append to it a copy of the FIR so registered, as any person who receives the notice must be aware for what he is being summoned to the Police Station.”
The bench further added that the state would have to come up with guidelines in case of police officers summoning any person. Till such guidelines were assembled, the bench stated that communications would have to include crime number and alleged offence, a copy of the FIR, along with a “search friendly” system for uploading FIRs. The court added that in the absence of crime number, offence, and FIR copy, the person to whom the notice was sent would not have to appear, and no coercive action could be taken against them.
The court accepted the second notice sent to the journalist, to be executed in line with the observations made by the court.
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