PESHAWAR, Feb 1: The Peshawar district and sessions judge, Hayat Ali Shah, has ruled that after receiving information about a cognizable offence the SHO of a police station is duty-bound to register a case.

The court directed SHO of Chamkani police station to register the case against some culprits on the complaint of a citizen, Iqbal Shah, who was forcefully dispossessed of a property.

The court ruled that by not registering the case on the complaint of Iqbal Shah the SHO had not fulfilled his duty. The court observed that the written report of a complainant "is in fact the first information report" and it should be incorporated as it is in the FIR.

According to the facts of the case, the complainant Iqbal Shah moved an application before the district and sessions judge on Oct 6, 2003, for registration of a case against some respondents.

The applicant alleged that he had made a written report to the police but they refused to register the case, therefore he approached the court for redressal.

On Oct 9, the DSP concerned and SHO Chamkani police station appeared before the court and stated that they would register the case on the report of the complainant. In view of their commitment the application was dismissed as being infructuous.

The SHO registered the case on Oct 9 vide FIR No 670. The complainant again moved an application and alleged that the SHO had not incorporated the facts of his written report in the FIR and instead had written an FIR of his own in order to give benefit to the culprits.

On Oct 24, the court ordered that the report made by the complainant in written form to the police was in fact the first information report and that should be incorporated verbatim in the FIR. The police complied with that order and registered another FIR No 707 on Oct 25 by incorporating the written report of the complainant.

Aggrieved with that order the respondents filed a writ petition before the Peshawar High Court. The high court quashed both the FIRs and directed the district and sessions judge to consider the original application of Oct 6 of the complainant to be pending and pass any order after hearing the respondents.

The respondents contended before the district judge that the SHO had earlier registered an FIR under the Arms Ordinance and the second FIR of the same incident could not be registered.

The court ruled that there was no bar on registration of a second FIR and in proper cases when the complainant was not satisfied with the report the superior courts had directed registration of a second FIR.