Murtaza Bhutto

The investigating agency will continue with the investigations without any
impediments and may collect evidence if other facts are found during the
course of investigations.
He submitted that despite the legal requirement of one FIR, the number of
investigations is not curtailed. There can be as many investigations as
warranted on the receipt of additional information. The AAG further
submitted that in the beginning of the hearing of the petition, he had made a
bona fide offer to include the proposed FIR into the FIR already registered in
respect of the incident in question.
But, he said, he was ridiculed and the offer was rejected with contempt,
although it was the only legal course open to the petitioners to communicate
their versions to the investigating agency. In support of his submissions, he
relied upon one full bench judgement of the Lahore High Court of 1965 and a
judgement of the Supreme Court of 1967. In both judgements, the findings
were that the additional information can be legally conveyed to the on-going
investigations and the police were duty-bound to ascertain the facts correctly
and report truly to the court for adjudication. He said the same offer is still
open as the government is itself willing to find out the truth. Regarding the
legal impediments for the registration of a second or third FIR, he relied upon
four judgements of the Supreme Court, which have laid down that once an
FIR has been registered, a second such FIR cannot be registered about the
same incident, although the proposed FIR may contain a divergent version
from that of the earlier registered FIR.
To amplify further, he also referred to the several judgements by the Lahore
High Court and also by the High Court of Sindh. He made a particular
reference to a earlier judgement delivered at Sukkur by a division bench of
the High Court of Sindh of which the chief justice was himself a member. The
bench has held that there can be only one FIR of an incident and for lodging a
counter version, the filing of a complaint as contemplated by the Cr. P.C. is an
inadequate remedy.
To a court question, Mr Nadeem submitted that there is no bar in law itself on
registering information in respect of the same incident, but simultaneously
there is no compulsion upon the police to take such a course and a writ of
mandamus can only be issued when there is a mandatory obligation imposed
by law and not otherwise.
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