2021 LHC 1877
Section 489F PPC does not distinguish or categorize reasons for creating the offence of issuance of a cheque that has been dishonoured. It does not create a classification of cheques. Only that a cheque issued and dishonoured is an offence. Since section 489-F PPC does not allow for any extraneous considerations to be taken into account before it can be triggered, it is in the nature of a self-executory provision, so to speak, and as long as a cheque is dishonoured upon presentation and an endorsement to this effect is provided by the bank, the offence is complete and the application narrating such an occurrence has to be acted upon in terms of Section 154 Cr.P.C.
The context in which the word ‘shall’ appears in section 154 Cr.P.C., the object and purpose in which it has been so used and the ensuing consequence clearly show that the word ‘shall’ has only been used in the mandatory sense. The mandate of section 154 Cr.P.C. reveals that at the stage of registration, on the basis of information disclosing commission of a cognizable offence, the police officer concerned cannot initiate an inquiry as to whether the information brought in by the first informant is reliable or genuine or otherwise and refuse to register a case on the basis that the information is not credible. The reliability, genuineness, credibility, reasonableness, veracity nee any opinion pertaining to the information so received has never remained a relevant precedent fact for registering a case under section 154 Cr.P.C.
At this point, a brief history of section 154 Cr.P.C. as it appears in the Criminal Procedure Code may be relevant. Before Criminal Procedure Code, 1898 was brought into force, the provisions about registration of a case and the ensuing investigation were not as chronologically listed or arranged as these are now. However, one thing transpires from a reading of section 139 of Criminal Procedure Code, 1861, section 112 of Code of Criminal Code, 1872, section 154 of Code of Criminal Procedure 1882 and section 154 of Criminal Procedure Code, 1898 (Section 154 Cr.P.C. as numbered in the previous Codes) that the provision contained in all these Codes clearly revealed compulsory registration of FIR in case of cognizable offence without conducting any preliminary inquiry. When the present Criminal Procedure Code, 1898 was brought into force, it brought with it a significant change with respect to placement of section 154 in the statute book. It was consciously located prior to section 156, the provision empowering police to investigate a cognizable offence. It is crystal, therefore, that the objective of such placement of a provision was clear and it was to ensure that the recording of FIR should be the starting point of investigation by the police and not the other way around.
W.P. No.9086 of 2021 Dawood Abdul Ghafoor Versus Justice of Peace etc.2021 LHC 1877
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