Magistrate can reject police closure report and treat protest petition as complaint: SC

Police filed a closure report saying no case. The victim filed a protest. The magistrate said—yes, there is a case here, and I am going to treat this protest as a fresh complaint and summon the accused. That order, passed by a Chief Judicial Magistrate in Kannauj in 2018, set off a legal tug-of-war that ended only last week in the Supreme Court of India.

Zunaid Khan lodged an FIR in August 2017. He alleged that certain persons, armed with sharp weapons, attacked him and his family due to an old enmity. His family members were seriously injured. The police investigated. Then, in November 2017, the investigating officer filed a Final Report—a closure report—saying no case was made out. The police effectively told the court: nothing happened here, or at least nothing we can prove.

Zunaid disagreed. He filed a Protest Petition before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kannauj. The CJM read the police report, read Zunaid's protest, and did something the police probably did not expect. He rejected the closure report. Then he registered the protest petition as a complaint case. Then he recorded the statements of Zunaid and eight witnesses. And in January 2022, he issued summons to the accused persons, directing them to appear and face trial.

When the High Court stepped in

The accused did not take this lying down. They approached the Allahabad High Court under Section 482 of the CrPC (the High Court's inherent power to prevent abuse of its process). Their argument was sharp and technical: the Magistrate, they said, had failed to comply with the mandate under Section 190(1)(b) of the CrPC (the provision that allows a magistrate to take cognizance of an offence based on a police report). The High Court agreed. In July 2022, it set aside both of the CJM's orders—the one from November 2018 and the one from January 2022—and directed the Magistrate to reconsider the matter afresh.

Zunaid appealed to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court, in a judgment delivered by a bench of Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Dipankar Datta on August 29, 2023, did something unusual. It did not just reverse the High Court. It called the High Court's reasoning "highly erroneous." It restored the CJM's orders in full. And it directed the complaint case to proceed.

The three doors a magistrate can open

The Supreme Court's reasoning turned on a question that sounds technical but has enormous practical consequences: what exactly can a magistrate do when the police file a closure report?

The answer, the court said, is not one option. It is three.

First, the magistrate can agree with the police and drop the matter entirely—if the grounds are insufficient to proceed. Second, the magistrate can disagree with the police, take cognizance of the offence under Section 190(1)(b) based on the police report itself, and issue process against the accused. Third—and this was the critical one—the magistrate can take cognizance under Section 190(1)(a) (cognizance based on a complaint) by treating the victim's protest petition as a fresh complaint, and then proceed under Sections 200 and 202 of the CrPC (which require the magistrate to examine the complainant and witnesses before issuing summons).

The CJM in Kannauj had chosen the third option. He had done it in writing, with a detailed order. He had examined the complainant and eight witnesses. He had satisfied himself that there was a prima facie case (enough evidence on the face of it to justify a trial). And then he had issued summons.

The High Court, the Supreme Court held, had no business interfering with that. A magistrate's discretionary order, passed within the four corners of the law, is not something a High Court should lightly set aside under Section 482.

Why the High Court got it wrong

The High Court had held that the Magistrate failed to comply with the mandate under Section 190(1)(b). But the Supreme Court pointed out a fundamental error in that reasoning. Section 190(1)(b) deals with taking cognizance on a police report. The CJM had not taken cognizance on the police report. He had rejected the police report and taken cognizance on the complaint—under Section 190(1)(a). The two provisions are separate tracks. A magistrate can choose either. And choosing one does not mean the other was "violated."

The court cited a line of precedents—H.S. Bains v. State (UT of Chandigarh), Gopal Vijay Verma v. Bhuneshwar Prasad Sinha, Gangadhar Janardan Mhatre v. State of Maharashtra, Rakesh & Another v. State of Uttar Pradesh, B. Chandrika v. Santhosh, India Carat (P) Ltd. v. State of Karnataka—all standing for the same proposition: even where a final report under Section 173 is accepted and the accused is discharged, the magistrate retains the power to take cognizance on a complaint or protest petition based on the same or similar allegations. The magistrate is not debarred from doing so merely because he earlier declined to take cognizance of the police report.

What this means for victims and accused

For a victim whose case has been closed by the police, this judgment is a powerful tool. It means the magistrate's door does not shut when the police say "no case." The victim can file a protest petition. The magistrate can treat it as a complaint. And if the magistrate is satisfied after examining the complainant and witnesses, the accused can be summoned to face trial—even if the police thought the case was dead.

For an accused person, the judgment is a reminder that a closure report is not a final acquittal. It is only the police's opinion. The magistrate has independent power to disagree. And the High Court will not lightly interfere with that disagreement if the magistrate has followed the procedure.

THE PLAY: If the police file a closure report in your case, do not give up—file a protest petition before the magistrate, who has the power to treat it as a fresh complaint and issue summons after examining you and your witnesses.

The Supreme Court ended its judgment with a simple direction: the CJM shall proceed with the complaint case in accordance with law. The accused may respond to the summons and appear within two weeks. The appeals stand allowed.

The police said no. The magistrate said yes. And the Supreme Court said the magistrate was right.