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The Karnataka High Court recently quashed a second First Information Report (FIR) registered against BJP workers in relation to a putting up buntings of Minister of Home Affairs, Amit Shah without permission during the Karnataka Legislative Assembly elections in 2018.

While quashing the second FIR and proceedings initiated, Justice M Nagaprasanna said,

“Once having registered a complaint on a particular premise of an incident, it was not open to the complainant to have registered another complaint on the very same incident regarding what happened during the very same period. The complainant cannot be permitted to improve on the earlier complaint and as an afterthought bring in other offences in the second complaint becoming a second FIR on sameness. It would amount to permitting multiple FIRs’ on the very same - incident, time of the incident, date of the incident and by the very same complainant. It would be hit by the doctrine of sameness as held by the Apex Court in the afore-extracted judgments."

In 2018, at the time when elections to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly were notified, complainant/1st respondent (Nisar Ahmed) registered a complaint as BJP had put up lot of buntings on the occasion of the arrival of Amit Shah, without authorization.

Later, the same were ordered to be removed by a Health Inspector of the Municipality at Hosakote.

However, the petitioner along with others abused the Officers and physically assaulted the complainant.

On the basis of this incident, two separate complaints are registered on the very same incident of removal of buntings by the very same complainant.

Aggrieved by this, the petitioner moved the High Court seeking to quash the second FIR and proceedings initiated.

Appearing for the petitioners, Senior Advocate, Sandesh J Chouta argued that the time of offence, place of offence and the incident which has triggered in registering the complaints, all of them happened between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m.

Therefore, there can be only one complaint on this incident.

The counsel appearing for the complainant/respondent No.1 countered that two FIRs are permissible on the two incidents as they are for different allegations, one for putting up buntings unauthorizedly and two, for ill-behaving with the officers.

While quashing the proceedings, the Single Judge opined,

"If the law that is laid down by the Apex Court in the afore-extracted judgments is considered, what would unmistakably emerge is, registration of second FIR on the same incident would be hit by the “doctrine of sameness” and will have to be annihilated as it would amount to improving the facts and the case in the subsequent complaint on the same incident. On the bedrock of the principles laid down in the afore-extracted judgments of the Apex Court, the case at hand will have to be considered."

Case Title: Byre Gowda vs Nisar Ahmed