29/12/2020
Petition and its Proposition Under Criminal Law.
In an age where police or prosecution are not capable of protecting all the interests of victim, the remedies like the protest petition empowers the common man to quest for real justice.
Under the criminal law the term Protest Petition is not defined. Protest Petition is an opportunity granted to the victim to raise objections against the conclusions of the investigation made by the police, commonly it is filed when police presented the final report under section 173 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 wherein the police concludes the allegation are not made out against the accused.
What is a Protest Petition?
When an aggrieved person or complainant is not satisfied with the police report which filed before the concerned court, such person may move the petition against the negative police report which is called the Protest Petition. In simple words, Protest Petition is a representation made by the victim to the court during or after the completion of investigation by the police. Such petition is treated as Complaint under Section 190 of Criminal Procedure Code before the concerned court.
How to File a Protest Petition?
Before or after filing of police report victim or informant can file protest petition in the court where said case is pending to meet the goals of justice. Victim can go with this remedy where previous investigation had wrongly acquitted the accused. Once the Magistrate establishes that this was not a false complaint and the victim is rightly unsatisfied, he/she can conduct the inquiry by himself/herself, or order an investigation by an officer-in-charge, to whom the complaint is forwarded.
However the essential ingredients of the Complaint must be satisfy in the Protest Petition before Magistrate takes cognizance under section 190(1) (a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. There are three options available to the Magistrate, when the final report is submitted by the police and the Protest Petition is filed.
*Firstly, Magistrate may accept the final report and may also reject the Protest Petition.
*Secondly, he may accept the final report but treat the Protest Petition as a Complaint and proceed in accordance with Section 200 and 202 of the Code.
*Lastly, he may accept the Protest Petition and reject the final report and take cognizance under Section 190 (1) (b) of the code.
The correct legal position is that Magistrate is not bound to accept the final report submitted by the police officials. The Magistrate can disagree with that report and take the cognizance even on the basis of police papers, if any submitted along with the police report. Hence, where the Protest Petition is filed, the procedure prescribed for trial of the complaint case has to be followed and Protest Petition has required to be dealt accordingly as per law.
The significance of the Protest Petition for a victim’s right is elusive since, apart from its non-existence in statutory literature, it also suffers from lack of certainty due to the limited number of case laws available to discern it from its ambiguities. Since the Protest Petition can be sent directly to the Magistrate without any police intervention, it expands a victim’s remedies in law, since the Magistrate need not even look at the shoddy police report to decide whether to go forward with the complaint or not.
