Registration Of FIR Mandatory U/S 154 CrPC If Information Discloses Commission Of Cognizable Offence; No Preliminary Inquiry Permissible In Such Situations: Supreme Court

The Court addressed the alleged caste-based discrimination and mental health concerns at IIT Delhi following the suicides of two students, Ayush Ashna and Anil Kumar. The families of the deceased students, seeking a criminal investigation into the deaths, alleged caste-based harassment by faculty and peers. The Petitions urged the registration of FIRs and an independent inquiry under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. However, the Delhi Police, after an inquiry under Section 174 of the CrPC, concluded that both deaths were suicides due to academic pressure and found no evidence of caste-based discrimination.

A Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan held, “We are of the view that responsibility of maintaining the safety and well-being of students rests heavily on the administration of every educational institution. Therefore, in the event of any unfortunate incident, such as a suicide occurring on campus, it becomes their unequivocal duty to promptly lodge an F.I.R. with the appropriate authorities. Such action is not only a legal obligation but also a moral imperative to ensure transparency, accountability, and the pursuit of justice.”

Advocate Mehmood Pracha represented the Appellant, while ASG Brijender Chahar appeared for the Respondent.

Brief Facts

The families claimed that Ayush Ashna, a B.Tech (Mathematics and Computing) student, had repeatedly informed them about discrimination by hostel mates and faculty. His father alleged in his complaint that Ayush was deliberately failed in subjects and was found hanging in his hostel room under suspicious circumstances. Similarly, Amit Kumar, the elder brother of Anil Kumar, filed a complaint stating that Anil was subjected to casteist remarks by professors and that bloodstains in his hostel room indicated foul play.

Court’s Reasoning

The Supreme Court noted that all the Police did in the course of the inquiry under Section 174 of the CrPC was to record the statements of other students belonging to SC/ST category studying in IIT Delhi, who stated that there was no caste-based discrimination in the hostel.

The Court noted, “In the present case, the appellants had approached the territorial police station on 21.07.2023 and 09.09.2023 respectively for registration of an F.I.R., alleging foul play and commission of offence under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The appellant nos. 1 and 2 respectively, further, on 11.09.2023, addressed a detailed letter to the Deputy Commissioner of Police, South-West, New Delhi for registration of F.I.R. However, no heed was paid to the fervent appeal made by the appellants herein.”

“The Police could not have taken a shortcut just because something happened in the hostel of an eminent educational institution like IIT Delhi. It seems that the Police very quickly jumped to the conclusion that the two boys were in some sort of depression as they were not doing well in their studies. Such conclusion of the Police may as well be correct. However, again, at the cost of repetition, we say that such a conclusion could have been arrived at only after following the due process of law, i.e., registration of an F.I.R. and investigation,” the Bench explained.

While the Bench directed the registration of an FIR in the case, it also stated, “We deem it absolutely necessary to discuss the disturbing pattern of student suicides being reported from various educational institutes across the country.”

Acknowledging the “suicide epidemic in educational institutions”, the Supreme Court noted, “What disturbs us even more is that the abovementioned incidents are not isolated one-off occurrences but are only a few out of the many which have taken place over a period of time owing to a multitude of reasons like ragging, academic pressure, caste-based discrimination, sexual harassment, etc. As per the data provided by the Union Minister of State for Education to the Rajya Sabha in 2023, 98 students died by suicide in higher educational institutes since 2018, out of which 39 were from IITs, 25 from NITs, 25 from central universities, four from IIMs, three from IISERs and two from IIITs.”

Advisory

The Court formulated the following advisory:

“i. Registration of an F.I.R. is mandatory under Section 154 of the Code, if the information discloses commission of a cognizable offence and no preliminary inquiry is permissible in such a situation.

ii. If the information received does not disclose a cognizable offence but indicates the necessity for an inquiry, a preliminary inquiry may be conducted only to ascertain whether a cognizable offence is disclosed or not.

iii. If the inquiry discloses the commission of a cognizable offence, the F.I.R. must be registered. In cases where preliminary inquiry ends in closing the complaint, a copy of the entry of such closure must be supplied to the first informant forthwith and not later than one week. It must disclose reasons in brief for closing the complaint and not proceeding further.

iv. The police officer cannot avoid his duty of registering the offence if a cognizable offence is disclosed. Action must be taken against erring officers who do not register an F.I.R. if information received by them discloses a cognizable offence.

v. The scope of preliminary inquiry is not to verify the veracity or otherwise of the information received but only to ascertain whether the information reveals any cognizable offence.

vi. As to what type and in which cases preliminary inquiry is to be conducted will depend on the facts and circumstances of each case. The category of cases in which preliminary inquiry may be made are as under: a. Matrimonial disputes/ family disputes b. Commercial offences c. Medical negligence cases d. Corruption cases e. Cases where there is an abnormal delay in initiating criminal prosecution, for example, over three months delay in reporting the matter without satisfactorily explaining the reasons for delay. The aforesaid are only illustrations and not exhaustive of all conditions which may warrant preliminary inquiry.

vii. While ensuring and protecting the rights of the accused and the complainant, a preliminary inquiry should be made time bound and in any case it should not exceed 7 days. The fact of such delay and the causes of it must be reflected in the General Diary entry.

viii. Since the General Diary/Station Diary/Daily Diary is the record of all information received in a police station, we direct that all information relating to cognizable offences, whether resulting in registration of an F.I.R. or leading to an inquiry, must be mandatorily and meticulously reflected in the said Diary and the decision to conduct a preliminary inquiry must also be reflected, as mentioned above.”

Consequently, the Court ordered, “These tragedies underscore the urgent need for a more robust, comprehensive, and responsive mechanism to address the various factors which compel certain students to resort to taking their own lives. In light of the concerns expressed above, a National Task Force to address the mental health concerns of students and prevent the commission of suicides in Higher Educational Institutions is being constituted.”

Accordingly, the Supreme Court directed the Registry to notify this matter after four months alongwith the interim report of the Task Force.

Cause Title: Amit Kumar & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 384)

Appearance:

Appellant: AOR R.H.A. Sikander; Advocates Mehmood Pracha, Jatin Bhatt, Sanawar, Kshitij Singh and Nujhat Naseem

Respondent: ASG Brijender Chahar; AOR Mukesh Kumar Maroria; Advocates Abhijit Pandove, Amit Sharma Ii, Bani Dikshit, Varun Chugh and Gaurang Bhushan

Click here to read/download the Judgment