mehnatWhat are "material facts" in an FIR?
Top of PageOne of the more important things in any FIR is that all material facts and circumstances must be recorded in it. In legal language, material facts are those facts –and material information is that information– which can change the course of a case depending upon their / its truthfulness or lack of truthfulness.
Desirable ingredients of an FIR
Top of PageMadabhushi Sridhar has done a fairly comprehensive analysis of FIRs in his work FIR, Arrest and Bail (Sridhar, M.; FIR, Arrest and Bail; Asia Book House; Hyderabad; 2010) [9]. He quotes earlier experts as having declared that an FIR needs to have eleven essential Ws in it. It is to be noted however that any such list of ingredients can as a matter of fact only be a desirable list of ingredients, and not an essential list of ingredients. This is because no FIR is legally inadmissible, regardless of whether or not it contains any or all so-claimed essentials. The "essential Ws" are listed in Sridhar's book as paraphrased below—
1) What information has been conveyed by the complainant / informant?
2) In What capacity has this information been conveyed?
3) Who committed the crime?
4) Against Whom was the crime committed?
5) When was the crime committed?
6) Where was the crime committed?
7) Why was the crime committed? That is to ask, What was the motive?
8) In Which way was the crime carried out / What was the modus operandi?
9) Are there any Witnesses? Who are they?
10) What was taken away by the accused? Or What was the damage done by the accused?
11) What traces were left by the accused?
Medico Legal Certificate
Top of PageIf somebody provides information about an injury to a person, then the concerned SHO is duty bound to record the same in the daily diary of his police station and to reach the hospital urgently to verify the truth of the claim made by the informant. Another essential purpose of the hospital visit is to ensure timely carrying out of medico-legal formalities. An MLC or medico-legal certificate is an important piece of evidence in any criminal case, and by extension, in any criminal complaint / FIR. A wife's case becomes much stronger in dowry cases if she has such a document in her possession. However, there are a number of cases every week in our courts in which deception by the complainant is exposed by criminal defence lawyers in spite of the existence of MLCs. This sometimes leads to filing of charges against the lying complainant.