Supreme Court explains how the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita widened safeguards for public servants before an FIR

25 October 2026

Hearing Pinarayi Vijayan v. K M Shajahan, the Supreme Court of India explained that Section 175(4) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita gives a public servant wider protection before a Magistrate orders an investigation than Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure did. Under Section 175(4), the Magistrate must first receive a report on the incident from the public servant's superior officer and consider the public servant's own account. The matter arose from a Kerala High Court order directing registration of an FIR in the CMRL-Exalogic case, which concerns payments of Rs 2.78 crore by Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited to Exalogic Solutions. The Enforcement Directorate had sent a communication under Section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to the Kerala government. The Court set aside the High Court Division Bench order refusing leave to appeal, allowed the petitioners to pursue the appeal and stayed the investigation for one week. It said its observations were limited to the right to appeal and expressed no view on the merits.