ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court held on Wednesday that insertion of a particular section of a law in the first information report (FIR) should not determine the nature of a crime. Instead, the court said, contents of an FIR should be examined to ascertain whether a cognisable offence was made or not.

“Needless to say that it is the contents of an FIR which are to be seen to ascertain whether a cognisable offence is made out. Mere mention of a particular section of the Pakistan Penal Code or any other offence under the law in the FIR is not determinative in this regard,” observed Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah in a judgement he wrote.

Under Section 154 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), an FIR can be registered only if a cognisable offence has been committed.

An investigation can be made by a police officer, without the order of a magistrate, under Section 156 of CrPC only in respect of a cognisable offence.

Justice Mansoor Ali Shah’s observations came on an appeal filed by the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) director general against a Feb 4, 2020, Islamabad High Court order which had accepted a plea by Syed Hamid Ali and others of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to quash an FIR registered against the respondents for alleged offences punishable under the Pakistan Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act 1947.

The FIA had challenged the IHC order in the apex court, but the latter upheld the High Court order, observing that the FIA petition was not only “meritless but also vexatious and amounts to continuation of harassment” caused to the respondents through initiating criminal proceedings against them in relation to a service matter.

According to the FIA, officials at the CDA had “abused their authority by approving illegal upgradations”. Moreover, the agency contended, the beneficiaries too were liable to prosecution and went on to register an FIR against them as well.

But the Supreme Court judgement explained that the allegations contained in the FIR did not mean that a criminal breach of trust, as defined in Section 405 of PPC, had been committed.

Therefore, the judgement said, a cognisable offence of criminal breach of trust by a public servant, mentioned in the FIR, is not made out.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2023