By Juhi Damodar
The Supreme Court in Vishnu Kumar Tiwari V. State of Uttar Pradesh has explained the procedure to be adopted by the Magistrates in dealing with protest petitions. Further, it has also stated the remedy available to the petitioner when his Protest Petition is not treated as a complaint by the Magistrate.
In the matter of Vishnu Kumar Tiwari V. State of Uttar Pradesh, the Supreme Court after referring to several judgements explained the procedure to be adopted by the Magistrates, in case of Protest Petition is not treated as a complaint. Here in this case the protest petition was dismissed after consideration by the Chief Judicial Magistrate and the final report of the police was accepted.
When the Magistrate contemplates accepting the final report filed by the police, concluding that allegations are not made out against the accused, the law mandates that notice should be given to the Informant/Complainant, so that the Informant/Complainant, on receipt of such notice, if not satisfied with the final report, may address the court ventilating his objections to the said final report. The aggrieved Informant/Complainant usually does this in the form of a Protest Petition. (There is no provision in the Criminal Procedure Code to file a Protest Petition by the Informant/Complainant, but this has been the practice). It was observed by the Supreme Court that if a Protest Petition fulfils all the requirements of a complaint, then a Protest Petition can be treated as a complaint by the Magistrate and can be dealt with as required under section 200 read with section 202 of the Criminal Procedure Code. If the Magistrate does not do so then, the Informant/Complainant can file a fresh complaint and the Magistrate will be bound to follow the procedure laid down under section 200 of the code read with section 202 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
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