How to file an FIR

An FIR is the first report of a cognisable offence given to the police, recorded in a prescribed form. It is not a judgment of guilt and it is not a conviction — it is the trigger for investigation.

Offences are cognisable or non-cognisable. For a cognisable offence — theft, robbery, assault causing hurt, rape, murder, cheating, criminal breach of trust, most serious crimes — police may arrest and investigate without a magistrate's order, and registration of an FIR is mandatory. For a non-cognisable offence, the police record the information in a station diary and require a magistrate's order to investigate.

The Supreme Court held in Lalita Kumari (2013) that registration of an FIR is mandatory where the information discloses a cognisable offence, and that no preliminary inquiry is permissible in such cases beyond narrow categories. Police discretion at the counter is far narrower than practice often suggests.

You do not need to be the victim. Anyone with information about a cognisable offence may give it, including a witness or a relative.

You are entitled to a free copy of the FIR immediately. This is statutory, not a favour, and the copy is what you will need for insurance, for a duplicate document, for a court, and for following the case.

In most states FIRs are also published online through the state police portal, excluding sensitive categories, and the case can be tracked through the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network.

Go to the police station and ask to register an FIR. If you can, write your complaint out beforehand in plain chronological order: what happened, when, where, who was involved, what was lost or damaged, and who witnessed it. Bring two copies.

Stick to facts you know. Avoid speculation about motive or naming people you merely suspect without saying so — an FIR is read closely later and inconsistencies are used against it.

The officer records the information, and it is read back to you. Read it yourself before signing. If the written version omits something, differs from what you said, or downgrades the offence, say so before signing and ask for it to be corrected. Once signed, changing it is difficult.

Get the free copy with the FIR number, the date, and the sections applied. Photograph it immediately.

For an offence that happened elsewhere, insist on a zero FIR. Any station must register it regardless of where the offence occurred, number it zero, and transfer it to the station with jurisdiction, which then registers it with a regular number. 'This is not our area' is not a lawful reason to send you away, and this matters most in exactly the situations where delay is most damaging.

For women complainants in cases of sexual offences, the statement must be recorded by a woman officer, and for specified offences it may be recorded at the complainant's residence.

Refusal is common and the remedies are specific. Do not argue indefinitely at the counter — move to the next step.

First, send your complaint in writing to the Superintendent of Police of the district (or the Deputy Commissioner of Police in a commissionerate), by registered post or email, stating that the station declined to register. Under the BNSS, if the SP is satisfied that the information discloses a cognisable offence, they must either investigate themselves or direct a subordinate officer to do so. Keep the postal receipt.

Second, approach a Judicial Magistrate. A magistrate may order the police to register and investigate. This route requires a written application and, in practice, usually a lawyer — free legal aid through the District Legal Services Authority covers this, and its eligibility is much wider than most people assume.

Many states also operate online complaint portals and e-FIR facilities for specified offences such as vehicle theft and lost property, which bypass the counter entirely. Check your state police website.

For cyber and financial fraud, use cybercrime.gov.in and call 1930 immediately — the online report is itself a formal complaint, and for financial fraud the speed of the call matters more than the FIR.

Other escalation routes exist and are worth using in parallel: the State Human Rights Commission or NHRC where the refusal itself is the grievance, the state Police Complaints Authority, and CPGRAMS.

For offences against women and children, the National Commission for Women and Childline can intervene, and refusal to register an FIR in specified cases is itself a punishable offence for the officer concerned.

The station assigns an investigating officer. You are entitled to know who that is and to be kept informed of progress — ask for the IO's name and number when you get your copy.

The investigation ends in either a chargesheet filed before a magistrate, or a closure report if the police conclude there is no case. You are entitled to notice of a closure report and may file a protest petition challenging it before the magistrate, who is not bound by the police conclusion.

Track the case status through your state police portal or the eCourts service once it reaches a court.

An FIR cannot simply be withdrawn by the complainant for most offences, because a criminal case is between the state and the accused, not between two individuals. Compoundable offences may be compromised with the court's permission; non-compoundable ones cannot. Quashing an FIR requires a High Court petition under its inherent powers.

Filing a false FIR is an offence, and so is refusing to register a genuine one — the law cuts both ways deliberately.

Keep every document: the FIR copy, the postal receipts, the IO's details, and a dated log of every visit and call. Where cases stall, that log is what makes an escalation credible.