In a ruling that cuts through years of procedural confusion, the Supreme Court has clarified that a Magistrate can order the registration of an FIR without waiting for prior government sanction.
The Court drew a firm distinction between two stages of criminal law: investigation and cognisance. According to the bench, the requirement of sanction under Sections 196 and 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure comes into play only when a court is ready to take cognisance of an offence—not when it is merely setting the investigative process in motion.
An order under Section 156(3) CrPC, the Court explained, sits squarely in the pre-cognisance stage. It is simply a direction to the police to investigate, not a judicial acknowledgment of guilt or even a formal initiation of proceedings in court.
Backing its reasoning with earlier precedents, the bench reiterated that directing an investigation does not amount to “taking cognisance.” Any attempt to insist on prior sanction at this stage, it warned, would distort the architecture of criminal procedure.
The judgment paints the criminal process as a sequence that must unfold in order: information of a cognisable offence leads to an FIR; investigation follows; a report is filed; and only then does the question of cognisance arise. Introducing a sanction requirement at the very first step, the Court said, would effectively paralyse this chain.
The bench also clarified that earlier rulings often cited to argue for prior sanction were rooted in the context of corruption law and cannot be stretched to govern general criminal procedure.
The case itself arose from a plea seeking action over alleged hate speeches in the run-up to the 2020 Delhi unrest. While the Court disagreed with the lower court’s reasoning on the need for sanction, it ultimately upheld the outcome, declining to order registration of an FIR on merits.
On the broader question of hate speech, the Court signalled restraint. It noted that the current legal framework already addresses such offences and stopped short of issuing fresh guidelines or expanding the law, leaving any policy shifts to the legislature.
At the heart of the ruling lies a simple but significant message: investigation cannot be held hostage to sanction. The law, as the Court underscored, is designed to move—step by step—and not stall at the starting line.
