Despite High Court order, no action on ‘parallel’ FIR

R Arumugham, a retired head master of Kancheepuram, approached the Central Crime Branch of Chennai city police in September 2015, to lodge a complaint against a police inspector who had allegedly lured many with the promise of getting the job of teachers. The inspector managed to collect Rs 26 lakh from several persons. 

The head master in his complaint had alleged that the inspector failed to get jobs for those who paid up and then intimidated them when they asked for their money back. CCB unit II had ‘registered’ an FIR under Sections 406 and 420 of IPC then and had also given a copy of it to Arumugham. 

However, DTNext after a search in the FIR tracking window found out that the ‘FIR number’ given in Arumugham’s document does not exist in the police records. 

As the police was sitting on hiscomplaint, the head master lost patience and approached the High Court, seeking a CBI investigation. The court, while disposing of the petition, directed the CCB to depute an ACP to probe the complaint on Jan. 1. Even after two months, the CCB failed to initiate action and the accused inspector, D Raj Kumar, continued to serve in the Tondiarpet station. 

“Now I am shocked to learn that my FIR is not even there in the police records. Cops have not only cheated me, but also the HC. I will move a contempt of court petition,” 67-year-old Arumugham told DTNext . 

Arumugham’s is not an isolated case. There are several complainants who throng the Commissioner’s office for the daily ‘grievance meeting’ as the local police refuse to investigate their cases. 

DTNext spoke to some of them, who allege that although they have been given the FIRs by the station, their cases have been delayed unnecessarily. “Now we realise that most of our FIRs could be the ‘non-DSR (daily status report) FIRs’. 

We were imagining the police would investigate our case since they have given us an FIR. When we tried checking our FIR status, the request was turned down showing invalid registration date/registration time, etc., though we entered the FIR number given to us,” one of the complainants, Purushothaman (name changed) said.