Examining Police Accountability in FIR Registration: An Analytical, PRISMA-ScR-Guided Review of Law, Practice and Comparative Evidence

Abstract

Background: The First Information Report (FIR) is the legal gateway to criminal justice in India. Although the Supreme Court has held that registration is mandatory whenever information discloses a cognizable offence, refusal, delay and dilution of complaints remain a recurrent finding in official, civil-society and scholarly reports. Objective: This study examines how, and why, accountability for FIR registration succeeds or fails, and what comparative evidence suggests about remedies. Methods: A scoping review guided by the PRISMA-ScR reporting standard was combined with doctrinal legal analysis, comparative institutional analysis and descriptive analysis of National Crime Records Bureau indicators for 2020 to 2022. Only sources published on or before 31 December 2024 were eligible. A supplied list of 117 candidate references was screened alongside purposively identified statutes, judgments, commission reports and peer-reviewed studies; 89 sources were finally synthesised. Results: Five recurrent mechanisms explain non-registration: statistical incentives to suppress recorded crime, workload and capacity strain, discretionary police culture, political and social-status filtering, and weak, remote or non-binding oversight. Comparative evidence from England and Wales, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Kenya and Pakistan shows that independent, resourced and publicly visible oversight bodies, combined with external audit of crime recording, are associated with more credible accountability than internal supervision alone. Conclusions: FIR non-registration is best understood as an accountability gap rather than an isolated lapse of individual duty. The paper proposes a five-gap framework and five testable propositions, and recommends audit-based indicators, protected e-FIR channels, time-bound magisterial and supervisory review, and independent complaints bodies with enforceable powers.