By Dr Olav Albuquerque

THE Goa Police must register FIRs in all cognizable crimes which mean crimes of a serious nature like murder, robbery, rape, dacoity, extortion or cheating senior citizens who own property. But they do not do so and this is slowly turning into a regular scenario. This is seen in property cheating cases where incompetent police sub-inspectors will try to convince you it is a civil dispute.
Do not believe them. These delinquent police officers can be prosecuted under section 166 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 which states that if a public servant conducts himself in such a way as to disobey the law with the intent to cause injury to a person, he can be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year in jail with or without a fine.

SEVEN OUT OF TEN!
WHEN you visit a police station to register an FIR, in seven out of ten cases, the policeman on duty who is a constable or if you are lucky, a police sub-inspector who will fool you by entering your complaint in the police diary, giving you a number and telling you to approach a magistrate’s court.
When my aged aunt was allegedly cheated by a public servant, the IO of the Maina Curtorim police station who was an Assistant Sub Inspector, Chandrakant Velip, wasted my precious time by trying to convince me it was a civil dispute. I had to make repeated trips from Mumbai to Goa and visited his superiors, like the then Police Inspector Gurudas Gawade who shouted at me : “I have given you an IO. Why are you phoning me?” I told him I would be complaining about him to his superiors. To this he replied that my conversation was being recorded to the effect that I was threatening a police officer.
Unfortunately, Gurudas Gawade has now been promoted as SP and Chandrakant Velip to PSI, after the attempts to persuade me that my complaint was a civil dispute (I happen to be a high court advocate and know criminal procedure). Munnalal Halwai, who accused the then Goa IGP of demanding a bribe of Rs 5.5 lakh from him to direct the Ponda police to register an FIR, complained that the Goa chief secretary, Dharmendra Sharma blocked an FIR against Garg who was transferred out of Goa despite the deputy chief of the Anti-Corruption Bureau directing the registration of an FIR.

ROLE OF CHIEF SECRETARY
WHEN I sought that an allegedly delinquent Assistant Public Prosecutor (APP) be transferred from arguing my complaint because he refused to submit a wrong discharge order for revision, the same chief secretary, Dharmendra Sharma allegedly did not immediately act upon my complaint. He signed the order transferring this delinquent APP only after I approached the office of the late chief minister, Manohar Parrikar. An upright official from the office of the chief minister phoned the then Director of Prosecutions and told her to substitute another APP for this allegedly delinquent APP. But when I phoned him, it was Dharmendra Sharma who tried to take the credit.
Even after I got an FIR registered after I approached the then Superintendent of Police in-charge of south Goa, Chandan Choudhary, IPS who instructed her deputy, Dinraj Govekar, to do the needful, the same ASI Chandrakant Velip closed my complaint by filing a bogus A-summary closure report which was outright dismissed by an outstanding magistrate, Ashwini Vishnudas Khandolkar who wrote a well-reasoned order that she could not accept the version of ASI Chandrakant Velip routed through his superiors, that my complaint was a civil dispute.
But after this excellent magistrate returned my file to the Maina-Curtorim police station, it remained untouched by the same ASI Chandrakant Velip until I approached an excellent trainee IPS officer with a BE degree from IIT, Kharagpur, Shivendu Bhushan who ensured the charge-sheet was filed. Those who were older than him like a former PI Shivram Vaingankar told me over the phone that “Courts say one thing today and another thing tomorrow. We cannot go by what the courts say.”
This is straight contempt of court but these police officers get away by committing contempt of court because courts do not exercise jurisdiction over them. The only way is to approach the Goa Police Complaints Authority at Altinho, near All India Radio. A former PI in-charge of Margao Town police station, Chetan L Patil, even sent an NGO and three policemen in a jeep wearing uniform to allegedly scare my aged aunt to sign a bogus statement dictated by a woman from an NGO that she had sold some property of her own free will when in fact, she had been threatened to do so.
Another PI in-charge of Maina-Curtorim police station, Ravindra Dessai, was given the President’s police medal. My experience with him was the same as with his subordinate, PSI Chandrakant Velip who did not care even for the judiciary. Complaining against Ravindra Dessai for refusing to register an FIR when my mobile worth Rs30,000 was stolen proved futile. His superior, Dy SP Santosh Dessai, did nothing until I complained to the IGP Paramaditya who picked up the phone and ordered Santosh Dessai to register an FIR.

LOUD MUSIC
IN Morjim, foreign tourists were disturbed with loud music well past midnight over two years ago. When they complained against the revelers to the police, a certain minister who is known to have links with gangsters, spoke to the police telling them not to take action against those playing the loud music. The police did nothing.
When a lowly PSI sporting two stars refuses to register an FIR, you can complain to the PI, the Dy SP and finally to the SP before you approach a magistrate under Section 156 (3) of the Criminal Procedure Code. But if the magistrate refuses to take cognizance of the alleged crime committed, the superior court will not take a different view unless there are very compelling circumstances.
So, there you have it. For every clever and competent police officers like Shivendu Bhushan, IPS who is an engineer from IIT, Kharagpur, there are 50 incompetent or corrupt police officers whom you will regularly meet. And when they refuse to register an FIR, see if the magistrate who is your last hope will listen to you.
And may God bless you!
(Last in the series on FIRs, next week.)