Mumbai police pen down over 20,000 such non-cognisable offences every month

An NC was registered after two women fought in a queue for waterIllustrationsRavi JadhavA threat for a haircut a municipal official who stole 4 kg apples in lieu of pending tax a fight in a queue for water ndash all these take up the valuable time of the police These hilarious incidents that are serious to those involved in them fail to merit FIRs but Mumbai police sees over 20000 such noncognisable offences every month Since 2010 till date police have registered 17 lakh NCsEvery police inspector who mans the station house and handles NCs then says these duties are the most tedious task We have to deal with many petty offences throughout the day when we are on station house duties People come up with such funny issues and convincing them that such petty things are not legally offences is next to impossible said a subinspectorAnother was lodged after a man claimed another man threatened him with a haircutHaircutting storySome of the issues that people think are serious included a forced haircut recently On the 7th of this month one Prithvi Triwedi 19 approached Mulund police and requested them to register a complaint against a person who had threatened him to have a haircut He claimed the person threatened that if Triwedi did not do so he would take him to a salon and get it cut Triwedi claimed he had the haircut for his precious hair due to the threat Police registered an NC against Hiren Chheda 30 under Sections 504 intentional insult 506 punishment for criminal intimidation and 323 punishment for voluntarily causing hurt of IPC But they found that Triwedi is a drug addict and used to take money from Chheda When Chheda asked for his money back after realising that Triwedi used it for drugs he Triwedi cut his hair and went to police with the storyA vendor claimed a civic official took away 4 kg applesKataar quarrelAnother case in which south Mumbai police have registered an NC against a woman last year involved a heated argument between two women standing in a queue for water The reason for the argument the complainant claimed was that the other woman got in queue out of turn but the accused claimed she was already there During the argument the complainant slipped and thats why she approached police to register a complaintApples in lieu of taxIn another interesting case a fruit vendor approached the Tulinj police station claiming that a civic official stole 4 kg apples from him The police registered an NC but said that the official came to the vendors shop as he was as defaulter and had not paid his tax He then took 4 kg apples from his shopLegal procedureA police official said We register an NC which comes under Section 155 of CRPC If there are two NCs against a person we can start chapter proceedings against him This means that under CRPC 107 we ask himher to give us in writing a bond that in the next one year they will not commit such a crime againIf a police official wants to investigate the NC then he can take court permission under 1552 of CRPC If the court grants him permission only then he can start his investigation and after it he has to submit the report to the court the official addedAccording to a police official when a complainant comes to a police station heshe is angry If told it is a petty issue they start arguing with the police and feel that they are not taking them seriously The police cant lodge an FIR in such petty crimes so they register NCsIn 2017 till date 80000 NCs have been registered