Bombay HC quashes FIR against Ajay Mafatlal

The Bombay high court today quashed an FIR against Ajay Mafatlal, scion of Mafatlal industries, ruling that police cannot register FIR in non-cognizable offences.
       
It also quashed a lower court proceedings against him.

The city police had registered an FIR against Ajay and his cousin Shailaja Parekh after a non-cognizable complaint was filed by his brother Atulya and sister-in-law Sheetal Mafatlal in December 2007 alleging that they were being threatened by Ajay.

Justice SC Dharmadhikari, hearing a petition filed by Ajay seeking to quash the FIR and proceedings initiated against him in a lower court, observed that a police officer has no powers to lodge FIRs in non-cognizable offences.
   
The HC remarked that the police officer in this case should have directed the complainant to approach the lower court instead of initiating judicial proceedings by filing FIR.
   
After the demise of Yogendra Mafatlal in January 2005, the owner of Mafatlal Industries, his sons, Ajay and Atulya, are locked in a property dispute.

On December 26, 2007 Atulya and Sheetal had lodged a complaint with the Gamdevi police alleging that Ajay had threatened them.

Based on their complaint, police filed an FIR under section 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 506 II (criminal intimidation) of IPC.

Ajay had secured anticipatory bail but later he withdrew it as the offences were bailable. The police did not arrest him but filed a chargesheet before Girgaum Magistrate who took cognizance of offences.
        
Later, Ajay was arrested and granted bail.

Ajay's counsel Shayaji Nangre argued in high court that the police should not have lodged the FIR as the offences were non-congnizable.

"Police cannot investigate into a non-cognizable offence till they seek permission from the magistrate which they have not done in this case," Nangre pointed out.