{Non Verification of tenants}
The Supreme Court (SC) has upheld a Punjab and Haryana high court decision ruling that the police cannot register FIRs against house owners for non- verification of tenants, paying guests and house helps.
The SC bench, presided over by justice BR Gavai, dismissed the plea filed by the UT administration against the high court order of September 26, 2019.
The high court had quashed an FIR by Chandigarh Police registered against a Sector-11 resident, Sandeep Gandotra, for employing a house help without getting her verification done.
The FIR was lodged in July 2018 after police raided Gandotra’s house and allegedly found the house help employed without police verification. Gandotra approached the high court in February 2019, challenging the FIR. “(The FIR) registered under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code at the Sector 11 police station is not maintainable and the same is hereby quashed,” the HC bench of justice Shekher Dhawan(now retd) had said, taking note of the various provisions and judgments cited in the matter.
As per Pankaj Chandgothia, who appeared for Gandotra before the high court, only public servants (who promulgated the prohibitory order) can make a complaint for offence under Section 188 of the IPC that too before a court and police have nothing to do with it.
{{/usCountry}}As per Pankaj Chandgothia, who appeared for Gandotra before the high court, only public servants (who promulgated the prohibitory order) can make a complaint for offence under Section 188 of the IPC that too before a court and police have nothing to do with it.
{{/usCountry}}“The intention (of legislature) appears to be clear that where an offence is committed under Section 188 of the IPC, the legislature has made it obligatory that the public servant before whom such an offence is committed, he will file a complaint to the magistrate and the cognisance of the offence by the court concerned is dependent upon the complaint in writing by such officer or an officer superior to such officer,” a 1996 judgment on the issue cited before the high court had said.
From time to time local magistrate issues orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), asking that no landlord/owner/manager of residential and commercial establishments would rent out any accommodation to any person, unless and until they have furnished the particulars of the said tenants, domestic servants and paying guests to the station house officer (SHO) concerned.
As per practice, the person has to inform police in writing the particulars of tenants and others to the SHO concerned. If, during surprise checks and drives, police come across cases where the verification was not done, the violator is booked under Section 188 (disobedience to an order) of the IPC. The offence is bailable.