The Bombay High Court has strongly criticised Maharashtra Police for failing to comply with the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, which mandates completion of preliminary inquiries within 14 days. The BNSS replaced the Criminal Procedure Code and came into effect on July 1, 2024.
A Division Bench of Justices A.S. Gadkari and Ranjitsinha Raja Bhonsale, hearing three separate petitions, said police were acting in “utter disregard to the mandate of law” and directed senior officers and the Union Home Ministry to explain the lapses.
In Kundan Jaywant Patil’s petition, the court observed, “We regularly come across cases wherein the police personnel and/or Police Stations within the territorial jurisdiction of this Court are conducting preliminary enquiries leisurely as per their own whims and caprices and in utter disregard to the mandate of law, i.e., Section 173(3)(i) of BNSS.”
The Bench noted that inquiries, mandated to conclude within 14 days, “continue for months together,” adding, “Either the police personnel are not aware of the fact that the Government of India has enacted BNSS and it came into effect from 1st July 2024, or they are deliberately not following the mandatory provisions of law for reasons best known to them.”
