What to do when a false FIR is filed against you

 What to do when a false FIR is filed against you 

Today we will discuss what is to be done in case a false FIR is filed against a person. Filing of an FIR is a very serious step in criminal law because it is one of those steps which sets the criminal law in motion which may at a later stage hinder personal liberty of a person against whom the FIR has been filed. Therefore, it is a very important step, a very significant step in setting the criminal law into motion.

If a false FIR is filed against a person,it will severely and adversely affect the rights of a person against whom it is filed. Therefore, law has given certain safeguards to a person against whom a FIR has been filed and who thinks that the FIR has been wrongly filed against him.

The first and foremost thing that you need to do when a false FIR is filed against you is to take steps to protect your liberty.

How will you protect your personal liberty?

You will protect your personal liberty by applying for Bail. So, once you apply for bail that application will be finally heard after a certain point of time. But immediately on filing of bail when your matter is first listed, you will pray to Court for being protected till the time that application for bail is finally decided. This is called interim protection. 

When the Court grants you interim protection it passes a direction that till the application for bail is finally decided, no coercive or precipitative steps would be taken against you, which means that till the application for bail is finally decided the police cannot arrest you. 

So therefore once you are protected by an order of the Court, you go to the police station with all documents in your support, all documents which show, which go to show that the FIR that has been filed by the Complainant or Informant against you, is a false FIR. 

You will carry things like photographs or CCTV footage showing that you were not present at the place where the alleged assault is told to have taken place. So you will take photographs like you were present at your friend's place, not at the place where the informant or the complainant is alleging that the assault had taken place. So something of this sort or probably if a person is alleging that you owe money to him and that you've not repaid him the money and that he is alleging that you've committed fraud or cheating on him - you will take documents which show that you already paid the money to him that you owed to him or probably you didn't owe him any money in the first place. 

So all documents that show that you are innocent have to be taken to the police at the time of you visiting the police station to give your version of the story against the false FIR that has been filed. So once you do this the police will either accept your version or will not accept your version. If the police accepts your version, the police may initiate a criminal case against the informant or the complainant who had filed the false FIR. 

But more often that aught this is not the case. This is the ideal situation where in you go and tell the police that a false FIR has been filed against me and the police sees all the documents and the police also comes to realise that yes, a false FIR has been filed against you.

In such a case, the police will initiate a criminal case against the informant under section 182 and 211 of the IPC. 

But if the police is not convinced that the FIR that has been filed against you is a false FIR the police will start its investigation and it will proceed towards filing of a Charge sheet. 

So, when the police dos that what you need to do is you will immediately need to go before the High Court and this is the third step. 

In the third step, you immediately go before the High Court and file an application for Quashing of the FIR. This application for petition for quashing of a FIR is filed under section 482 of the CrPC, the Criminal Procedure Code. 

So when the High Court, on the first date of hearing, hears your petition for quashing, what the High Court generally does is it protects you from any coercive steps that the police may take. 

So here again you are protected by the order of the High Court from any steps which may be taken by the police like probably if the police goes an takes an arrest warrant against you, you will be protected from that warrant of arrest by this order of the High Court, which the High Court would have passed on the first date of hearing of that quashing petition. 

This is again an interim order, it is an interim protection granted to you till the time the High Court hears your quashing petition under section 482 of the CrPC. And when the hearing of the quashing petition takes, when the arguments are finally heard, if the High Court based on materials that you have furnished, comes to a conclusion that there was a grave miscarriage of justice or there was an abuse of the process of  law by the complainant or the informant the High Court will quash the FIR.

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And when the High Court quashes the FIR, it is at this stage that now you come on the offensive. Till this time you were defending yourself, now you can come on the offensive and initiate an action against the complainant who had filed a false case against you, and this action, this action will be filed under sections 182 and 211 of the IPC which deals with someone furnishing false information to the police or a public official and under section 500 which deals with defamation. 

So therefore friends this is what you can do in case of false FIR is filed against you. The process of law is sacrosanct and law has given protection to anyone who is prejudiced by abuse or miscarriage of the process of law, provided they are taken timely.

Filing of an FIR is everyone's right, but filing of a false FIR is a punishable offence and the court takes a very serious view of it. So therefore if a false FIR is filed against you, timely corrective legal action will be something that will get you out of trouble. So that is it in this discussion.