How to file a complaint against a police officer

A grievance against a police officer in India sits at the intersection of five overlapping forums — the supervisory chain inside the force under Section 173(4) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the Magistrate's complaint under Section 223 BNSS, the Police Complaints Authority directed in Prakash Singh v Union of India, (2006) 8 SCC 1, the National and State Human Rights Commissions under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, and the CBI/SIT route through Article 226 writ jurisdiction. Choice of forum is the first strategic question, and choice constrains everything that follows.

The Indian police is one of the most heavily regulated arms of the State, governed by the Police Act, 1861, the cadre rules of each State, the procedural code now found in the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the Supreme Court's seven-directive framework in Prakash Singh v Union of India, (2006) 8 SCC 1, and the human-rights overlay of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993. The accountability framework that has grown out of these instruments is not a single hierarchy but a five-track architecture — internal/departmental, criminal-procedural, statutory-oversight under the PHRA, supervisory-oversight under Prakash Singh, and constitutional-writ. Each track has its own threshold, its own pace, and its own remedy; the failure of one does not foreclose the others, and a serious grievance is often pursued across two or three simultaneously.

Internal route — the supervisory chain and Section 173(4) BNSS

The first-line forum for a complaint of police misconduct or refusal to act is the supervisory chain inside the force. Where the grievance is the non-registration of an FIR by the officer in charge of a police station, Section 173(4) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 [Section 154(3) of the CrPC, 1973] supplies a statutory remedy. The aggrieved person may send the substance of the information, in writing and by post, to the Superintendent of Police of the district. The Superintendent, if satisfied that the information discloses the commission of a cognizable offence, "shall either investigate the case himself or direct an investigation to be made by any police officer subordinate to him" — and that officer is statutorily clothed with the powers of an officer in charge of a police station for that case.

Section 173(4) is the most under-used statutory remedy in Indian criminal procedure. It was designed to plug the gap identified by every Law Commission since the Fourteenth Report — that the officer in charge of a police station has, in practice, a discretion to refuse registration that the bare text of Section 154 CrPC (now Section 173 BNSS) does not give him. The Supreme Court's resolution of the registration question in Lalita Kumari v Govt of UP, (2014) 2 SCC 1 — that registration of an FIR is mandatory where the information discloses a cognizable offence and no preliminary inquiry is permissible save in narrow categories — has not eliminated the gap in practice. The Section 173(4) BNSS communication to the Superintendent of Police is the documentary marker that the gap exists in a specific case, and it lays the foundation for every subsequent forum.

For grievances that go beyond refusal of registration — assault by the officer, demand of illegal gratification, mishandling of a witness, breach of the D K Basu arrest safeguards — the departmental route is the cadre disciplinary rules. Each State has its Police Manual or Police Standing Orders, and each cadre has departmental conduct rules under the All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968 (for IPS officers) and the State Police Service (Conduct) Rules (for state-cadre officers). A complaint to the Director General of Police of the State, or to the District Magistrate where the officer is district-level, triggers a departmental inquiry. The inquiry produces a charge-sheet (departmental, not criminal), a domestic inquiry on the standard of preponderance of probability, and a penalty under the cadre rules ranging from censure to dismissal. The remedy is administrative; the standard of proof is lower than in criminal proceedings; and the timeline is, in honest practice, long.

Criminal-procedural route — Magistrate complaint under Section 223 BNSS

Where the alleged conduct of the officer is itself a criminal offence — wrongful confinement, custodial assault, voluntary causing hurt to extort confession (Section 120 BNS [Section 330 IPC]), public servant disobeying law with intent to cause injury (Section 198 BNS [Section 166 IPC]), public servant framing an incorrect record (Section 199 BNS [Section 167 IPC]) — the complainant has two procedural doors.

The first is to insist on registration of an FIR. The information is given to the officer in charge of the police station under Section 173(1) BNSS. If registration is refused, the Section 173(4) BNSS communication goes to the Superintendent of Police. If the Superintendent refuses or fails to act, the aggrieved person moves the Judicial Magistrate of First Class under Section 175(3) BNSS [Section 156(3) CrPC] for an order directing registration and investigation. Sakiri Vasu v State of UP, (2008) 2 SCC 409, is the controlling judgment on the scope of this route — the Magistrate, on a complaint that the police have refused registration or are not investigating fairly, has the power not only to direct registration but to direct a proper investigation, and the Court can monitor the investigation through periodic reports.

The second door is a private complaint under Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 [Section 200 of the CrPC, 1973]. The Magistrate examines the complainant on oath, examines such witnesses as the complainant produces, and may either (a) take cognizance and issue process under Section 227 BNSS [Section 204 CrPC] or (b) direct an inquiry by a police officer or by the Magistrate himself under Section 225 BNSS [Section 202 CrPC] before deciding whether to issue process. The Section 223 route bypasses the police altogether — the complainant places the allegation directly before a judicial officer, who tests it on his own examination and proceeds without dependence on a police charge-sheet.

The strategic difference between Section 175(3) BNSS and Section 223 BNSS is real. A Section 175(3) order routes the case back to the police for investigation, with the consequence that the same force whose officer is being complained against conducts the inquiry — a structural compromise that the Supreme Court has acknowledged but not solved. A Section 223 complaint puts the cognizance question before the Magistrate from the start, with the consequence that the complainant must bring his own witness material and bear the procedural burden. In a serious case of police misconduct, the practitioner's instinct is often to file both — a Section 175(3) application for fairness of investigation, and a Section 223 complaint as a backstop.

A critical procedural barrier under both routes is Section 218 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 [Section 197 of the CrPC, 1973], which requires prior sanction of the State Government for the prosecution of any public servant — including a police officer — for an offence "alleged to have been committed by him while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duty." The case-line on Section 197 CrPC, applicable on identical terms to Section 218 BNSS, distinguishes acts committed in the discharge of duty (sanction required) from acts committed under colour of office but outside the discharge of duty (no sanction required). Custodial assault, extortion, fabrication of evidence, and disappearance have been consistently held to fall outside the protective limb — these are not acts "in the discharge of duty," and prosecution may proceed without sanction.

The Prakash Singh framework — Police Complaints Authority

The single most important structural reform of police accountability in independent India is the Supreme Court's judgment in Prakash Singh v Union of India, (2006) 8 SCC 1. A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal, Justice C K Thakker and Justice P K Balasubramanyan, hearing a public-interest writ that had been pending for a decade, issued seven directives binding on the Union and the States until comprehensive police-reform legislation was enacted. The directives covered the State Security Commission, the selection and minimum tenure of the Director General of Police, the Police Establishment Board for transfers and postings, the separation of investigation and law-and-order, and — at the heart of the accountability architecture — the Police Complaints Authority.

Directive six in Prakash Singh mandates the establishment of a Police Complaints Authority at the State and District levels. The State-level Authority is to be chaired by a retired judge of the Supreme Court or High Court, and is to inquire into allegations of "serious misconduct" against officers of the rank of Superintendent of Police and above — defined to include death in police custody, grievous hurt, rape in police custody, extortion, land/house grabbing under colour of office, and incidents involving serious abuse of authority. The District-level Authority, similarly composed, inquires into allegations against officers below the rank of Superintendent of Police. The findings of the Authority are to be ordinarily binding on the disciplinary authority of the State; the State must record reasons in writing if it departs from them.

The implementation record of Prakash Singh across States is uneven. Most States have enacted police-reform legislation (the Kerala Police Act, 2011; the Maharashtra Police (Amendment) Act, 2014; the Punjab Police Act, 2007 are among the more substantive) that purports to give effect to the directives, but the Supreme Court's monitoring bench has repeatedly recorded that the State Authorities are under-resourced, that District Authorities exist in name in many States, and that the binding-on-disciplinary-authority limb is often diluted to "advisory" in the State statutes. A litigant routing a serious-misconduct complaint to the Police Complaints Authority needs to check the specific State enactment for the composition, the rank threshold, and the binding effect of the Authority's findings; the framework is uniform in principle but variable in execution.

A pragmatic point. The Police Complaints Authority is the appropriate forum for systemic misconduct allegations — a pattern of custodial assault, a pattern of false-FIR registration, a record of bribe-taking against a named officer. The Authority can call for files, examine witnesses on oath, and issue findings that the State must take on its disciplinary record. For one-off criminal allegations against an officer, the criminal-procedural route is faster; for grievances that go to the conduct of an officer over time, the Authority is the structurally correct forum.

The PHRA route — NHRC and the State Human Rights Commissions

The National Human Rights Commission, constituted under Section 3 of the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, and the State Human Rights Commissions, constituted under Section 21 of the same Act, are the statutory human-rights forums in India. Their jurisdiction over complaints of police misconduct is direct, statutory, and — for the specific category of "human-rights violation" or "abetment of human-rights violation by a public servant" — extensive.

Section 12 of the PHRA, 1993 sets out the NHRC's functions. The Commission may "suo motu or on a petition presented to it by a victim or any person on his behalf" inquire into complaints of (a) violation of human rights or abetment thereof, or (b) negligence in the prevention of such violation, by a public servant. The State Commissions have similar functions under Section 29 read with Section 12 in respect of human-rights violations on matters in the State List or Concurrent List. Police misconduct — custodial death, custodial assault, fake encounter, illegal arrest, refusal to register an FIR for an Article 21 violation — falls squarely within Section 12.

The procedural powers of the Commissions are substantial. Section 13 of the PHRA confers on the Commission the powers of a civil court under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 — summoning of witnesses, examination on oath, discovery and production of documents, receipt of evidence on affidavit, and requisition of any public record. Section 14 permits the Commission to utilise the services of any officer of the Central or State Government for investigation. Section 17 lays down the inquiry procedure — notice to the public authority concerned, opportunity of being heard, and the option to inquire openly or in camera. Section 18 lists the steps the Commission may recommend after inquiry — prosecution of the public servant under the applicable criminal law, payment of "immediate interim relief" to the victim or family, and any other measure the Commission considers proper.

The limitation in Section 36(2) of the PHRA — that the Commission shall not inquire into a matter after the expiry of one year from the date of the alleged act — is the most significant procedural barrier and the one most often litigated. The Commissions have developed a body of practice on the limitation, treating continuing violations (ongoing illegal custody, repeated harassment of a family, withheld investigation) as outside the one-year bar, and treating the date of knowledge of the violation rather than the date of the act as the start of the limitation period in disappearance and custodial-death cases.

The recommendation under Section 18 is not, in form, binding on the State. The State has the procedural option of disagreeing and recording reasons. In substance, however, the NHRC's recommendations on interim compensation and prosecutorial direction are followed by most State Governments in most cases — partly because the Commission tables its annual report under Section 20 of the PHRA before Parliament, and a State's record of non-compliance becomes a matter of public scrutiny. The PHRA route is therefore most effective where the alleged misconduct is serious enough to engage the human-rights vocabulary — death in custody, custodial torture, fake encounter — and less effective for low-grade misconduct that does not engage Article 21 directly.

One coordination point. The NHRC and the State Commissions have a non-overlapping jurisdiction under Section 36(1) of the PHRA — once a matter is being inquired into by a State Commission, the NHRC will not inquire into it (and vice versa), to avoid parallel inquiry. A petitioner choosing between the two forums should therefore decide on the basis of the State Commission's track record in the State of cause of action and the speed of listing — the NHRC is usually faster and better-resourced; the State Commissions are usually closer to the witnesses and the documentary record.

Writ jurisdiction and the CBI/SIT route

Where the criminal-procedural and statutory-oversight routes have failed — the FIR has not been registered, the police investigation is captured, the Police Complaints Authority is non-functional, the State Commission is delayed — the constitutional-writ forum under Article 226 of the Constitution (and Article 32, for matters reaching the Supreme Court) is the route of last resort and of widest reach. The writ jurisdiction permits the High Court to direct registration of an FIR, transfer of investigation from the State police to another agency, court-monitored investigation, and the constitution of a Special Investigation Team of officers chosen by the Court.

The transfer of investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation is governed by State of West Bengal v Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights, (2010) 3 SCC 571 — a Constitution Bench. The Court held that a High Court has the power under Article 226 to direct the CBI to investigate a cognizable offence within the State even without the State Government's consent under Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946 — the constitutional power overrides the statutory consent requirement when the High Court is satisfied that the case has "national or international ramifications, or where the police investigation is unlikely to be fair." The threshold is high and the Court is cautious; the direction is reserved for cases where the investigating agency's independence is itself in doubt.

The Special Investigation Team is the more flexible variant. The High Court constitutes a SIT of officers — usually a senior IPS officer of another State, a CBI officer on deputation, and a forensic expert — and directs the SIT to investigate under court supervision. The SIT files periodic reports to the Court, and the Court monitors the progress of investigation, the filing of charge-sheets, and the conduct of trial. Vineet Narain v Union of India, (1998) 1 SCC 226, which produced the doctrine of "continuing mandamus," is the foundational case; Sakiri Vasu v State of UP, (2008) 2 SCC 409 extends the same monitoring power to the Magistrate under Section 175(3) BNSS [Section 156(3) CrPC] at the trial-court level.

The writ route is the appropriate forum for cases where the misconduct allegation goes to the institutional integrity of the State police — encounter killings, organised extortion involving multiple officers, sustained false-FIR campaigns against an identified group. The cost of the route is its slowness in coming to a remedy; the benefit is the breadth of relief the Court can direct.

Compensation and the public-law route

Monetary remedies against the State for police misconduct sit on three independent bases. The first is the constitutional-compensation jurisprudence emerging from Rudul Sah v State of Bihar, (1983) 4 SCC 141, Nilabati Behera v State of Orissa, (1993) 2 SCC 746 and D K Basu v State of West Bengal, (1997) 1 SCC 416 — the High Court or Supreme Court in writ jurisdiction may award compensation to the victim of a fundamental-rights violation, on the State's account, without remitting the petitioner to a civil suit. The second is the statutory interim relief under Section 18(3) of the PHRA, 1993 — the NHRC or State Commission may recommend "immediate interim relief" pending criminal prosecution. The third is a civil suit for damages against the State and the officer personally, for the tort of false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, assault or battery.

The three routes are not mutually exclusive. A compensation award by the High Court in a writ petition does not bar a subsequent civil suit (though the writ-court figure will be set off against any civil decree). An NHRC interim award does not bar a writ petition for fuller compensation. The practitioner's first move in a serious case is usually the writ route for speed and the PHRA route for documentary leverage on the State; the civil suit, where the quantum is large, follows after the criminal record is in.

Criminal liability of the officer — Section 198 BNS and adjacent provisions

The substantive criminal law applicable to police misconduct, in the post-2023 BNS framework, is built around three sections. Section 198 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 [Section 166 of the IPC, 1860] punishes a public servant who disobeys any direction of the law as to the way in which he is to conduct himself as such public servant, with intent to cause injury to any person. Section 199 BNS [Section 167 IPC] punishes a public servant who frames an incorrect document or electronic record with intent to cause injury. Section 120 BNS [Section 330 IPC] punishes voluntary causing of hurt to extort confession, or to compel restoration of property. These three provisions are the workhorses of police-misconduct prosecutions; charge-sheets in custodial assault and fake-FIR cases routinely invoke them.

Beyond the BNS, the special-statute exposure of a police officer is wide. Sections 7 and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (as amended in 2018) cover bribe-taking and undue advantage. Section 4 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 punishes a public servant who wilfully neglects his duties under that Act. Section 23 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 covers media disclosure violations; Sections 21 and 22 of the same Act cover failure of designated officers to report or record.

An overlooked enabling provision is Section 379 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 [Section 340 of the CrPC, 1973]. The Magistrate or the Court before whom a false complaint, false statement on oath, or fabricated evidence has been laid, may make a complaint in writing for prosecution of the offender under the BNS provisions on offences against the administration of justice. The Section 379 BNSS power runs against private complainants (false FIRs) and against police officers (false charge-sheets, fabricated investigation records); it is rarely exercised but available where the Court is satisfied that the false material was a deliberate manipulation of the process.

The Section 218 BNSS sanction question

The single biggest doctrinal question in the prosecution of a police officer is the application of Section 218 of the BNSS [Section 197 of the CrPC, 1973]. The section requires the previous sanction of the State Government for the prosecution of a public servant for an offence "alleged to have been committed by him while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duty."

The case-line on Section 197 CrPC — which transfers to Section 218 BNSS without doctrinal alteration — distinguishes between acts intrinsically connected with the discharge of duty (sanction needed) and acts under colour of office but not within the discharge of duty (sanction not needed). The Supreme Court has consistently held that custodial assault, fabrication of evidence, extortion, demand of illegal gratification, and fake-encounter killings fall outside the protection of Section 197 — these are not acts done in the discharge of official duty, however much the officer may claim them to be. State of Maharashtra v Atma Ram, (1966) Supp SCR 442, Bakhshish Singh Brar v Gurmej Kaur, (1987) 4 SCC 663, and Prakash Singh Badal v State of Punjab, (2007) 1 SCC 1, are the standing references.

Acts at the boundary are harder. Excessive use of force in a lawful arrest, unlawful detention during a lawful investigation, refusal to permit a lawyer at interrogation in breach of D K Basu — courts have divided on whether these are protected by the sanction requirement. The pragmatic position is that the sanction question is decided when cognizance is taken; the Magistrate or the Sessions Court records its conclusion on whether the alleged act is intrinsically connected with the discharge of duty, and proceeds either way. The High Court can be moved on the sanction question through a Section 528 BNSS [Section 482 CrPC] petition where a wrong call is made.

Where the architecture sits today

The accountability architecture in 2026 is statutorily complete on paper. Section 173(4) BNSS captures the registration-refusal grievance. Section 175(3) BNSS routes the Magistrate-directed investigation. Section 223 BNSS supplies the private-complaint door. Section 218 BNSS preserves the sanction filter. The PHRA, 1993 supplies the human-rights forum. The Prakash Singh framework supplies the supervisory-oversight forum. The Article 226 writ supplies the constitutional last resort. The five tracks together cover every plausible grievance against a police officer.

The implementation reality is uneven. The Section 173(4) BNSS communication is widely under-used because complainants do not know the route exists. The Section 175(3) BNSS jurisdiction is widely exercised but the Magistrate-directed police investigation suffers the same structural compromise as the underlying police investigation. The Police Complaints Authorities exist in most States in name; the State Commissions under the PHRA are present and active in some States and dormant in others; the NHRC is functional but under-resourced for the volume of complaints. The writ route, though available, is slow and outside the reach of complainants without legal representation.

Three open questions deserve flagging. The first is the binding effect of Prakash Singh-mandated Police Complaints Authority findings on State disciplinary action — the Supreme Court's monitoring bench has signalled, in compliance reports filed by the States, that the "ordinarily binding" formulation is being diluted to "advisory" in State enactments, and a sharper restatement of the Authority's powers has been mooted but not delivered. The second is the relationship between the NHRC and the writ courts where the same misconduct is being inquired into in both forums — Section 36(1) of the PHRA bars the Commission from inquiring once a court is seised, but the Commission has, in some recent practice, treated this as a discretionary suspension rather than a jurisdictional bar. The third is the Section 218 BNSS sanction question at the boundary — courts continue to divide on whether breaches of D K Basu safeguards, excessive force in lawful arrests, and overstay of police custody fall inside or outside the discharge-of-duty protection, and a definitive Supreme Court ruling on the boundary cases is overdue.

The lesson the architecture teaches is structural. No single forum is sufficient for a serious complaint against a police officer; choice of forum is the first strategic question, and a careful complainant pursues two or three tracks in parallel — Section 173(4) BNSS for the documentary marker, Section 175(3) BNSS or Section 223 BNSS for the criminal-procedural foothold, NHRC or SHRC under Section 13 PHRA for the human-rights record, and the writ petition under Article 226 for the constitutional backstop. The forums talk to each other on the documentary record; a finding in one strengthens the case in the next. That, in 2026, is what police accountability looks like in practice.