Breather for Teenmaar Mallanna: Telangana High Court asks cops to refrain from registering multiple cases

Hyderabad: The single judge bench of Justice K Lakshman on Tuesday heard a writ plea filed by K Mamatha, wife of Chintapandu Naveen Kumar, who is popular by his sobriquet, Teenmaar Mallanna, seeking a direction to the Telangana police to refrain from registering multiple FIRs against her husband on the same issue and passing the following orders.

Nearly 35 crimes have been registered against Teenmaar Mallanna at different police stations across the State for different offences, out of which, five crimes were registered against him for abusing the Chief Minister of Telangana.

The court felt that registration of multiple FIRs on the same allegations arising out of same cause of action was impermissible under Articles 19 (1)(a) of the Constitution of India and was also in violation of the procedure laid down in CrPC and contrary to the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in various judgments.

Justice K Lakshman directed the Director General of Police to personally supervise the investigation and if there were more than one crime pending against him, the police shall conduct the investigation in one crime and treat the others as statements under Section 162 of CrPC. He also directed the police to refrain from registering multiple crimes against Mallanna, and information regarding the number of crimes registered against Mallanna, pendency of PT warrants, bailable/non-bailable should be either informed to Mallanna or to his wife within a week. The DGP shall issue instructions to the concerned SHOs to close such crimes, which are registered multiple times. The Investigating Officer shall adhere to procedure laid down under Section 41-A of CrPC and before arresting Mallanna, the police should follow directions issued by the apex court in DK Bose case. Further, the police should not resort to any vindictive attitude towards Mallanna and should not harass him or his wife for moving regular/ anticipatory bail applications before concerned Magistrates. The Magistrates should thoroughly check contents of the complaints before proceeding further in the cases when adjudicated by them, Justice Laxman added.