It is not the first time that the government will be asked to put FIRs online. In fact, over three years ago, a similar order was passed by the state information commission, which was challenged by the police.
After the Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday ordered the states and Union territories to upload FIRs on websites within 24 hours of their being registered, the state police department said that uploading the FIRs on the websites is a daunting task and that the data storage capacity has to be increased.
It is not the first time that the government will be asked to put FIRs online. In fact, over three years ago, a similar order was passed by the state information commission, which was challenged by the police.
"The order of the apex court will be complied with. There are other factors like ability to hold so much of data on the website that have to be looked into," said director-general of police Satish Mathur.
Another police officer said that once the FIR is registered, the information will be passed on to the concerned district, so that it could be uploaded on the concerned district police website. "Since the FIRs are handwritten, the documents will have to be scanned before uploading them and we might require more technical manpower," the officer said.
In 2013, Andheri resident Shrikant Joglekar had approached the information commission that the FIR he had sought was not provided to him. He wanted the copy of the FIR and also the copy of the complaint, based on which the FIR was filed by the police against him.
"A false FIR was filed against me. But to get it quashed, I needed to get a copy of it to argue my case in court," Joglekar had said when he spoke to dna in 2013. dna tried to get in touch with him but he was not available for comment.
At that time, Joglekar had stated that a complaint pertaining to some property registration was filed against him over six months ago but he was not given a copy. Joglekar alleged that the Andheri police refused to hand over a copy, claiming that doing so would hamper their investigation process. Joglekar had also claimed that several "fraudulent" FIRs had not been quashed only because the copies were never handed over to the accused.
Ratnakar Gaikwad, state chief information commissioner, directed the office of the director-general of police and all senior officials to ensure that the order is communicated to all police stations and implemented by June 10. The government, back then, decided to challenge the order. A similar order on policy manual was also challenged by the police.
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