R.R. Chari v. State of Uttar Pradesh

The Sanhita never defines "cognizance", although the whole architecture of the chapters on cognizance turns on it: the bars on cognizance, the limitation periods, the examination of the complainant, and the line between what the police do and what the court does all operate from the moment cognizance is taken. A question that asks when cognizance is taken cannot be answered from the section, because the section only says that a Magistrate may take cognizance on a complaint, on a police report, or on information or his own knowledge.

R.R. Chari fills the gap, and it does so with a formula short enough to reproduce exactly.

The question was at what point a Magistrate is to be regarded as having taken cognizance of an offence, there being no definition of the expression in the Code.

The Court held that taking cognizance does not involve any formal action, or indeed action of any kind, but occurs as soon as a Magistrate as such applies his mind to the suspected commission of an offence.

The test is deliberately not procedural. If cognizance depended on a formal order, a Magistrate could defer or disclaim it at will, and the protections that hang on the moment of cognizance — the bars in BNSS ss. 215 to 222 (CrPC ss. 195 to 199), the limitation periods, the requirement to examine a complainant — could be evaded simply by not recording anything. Tying cognizance instead to the application of judicial mind as a Magistrate to the suspected commission of an offence makes the moment turn on what the Magistrate is doing rather than on what he writes.

The qualifier "as such" carries weight and is worth reproducing. A Magistrate who looks at the same papers for another purpose — to order investigation, or to deal with remand — has not applied his mind to the suspected commission of the offence in the sense the test requires.

This is the opening authority for any question on cognizance: what it means, when it is taken, and who may take it. It also sets up the related points the course relies on — that "cognizance" carries no mystic significance and means no more than becoming aware of, or taking notice judicially, of a matter; and that where cognizance is taken on a police report, the report must be the one forwarded on completion of investigation and not a preliminary or incomplete one.

It disposes of the argument that some formal order is needed before cognizance can be said to have been taken. It does not decide whether a Magistrate should take cognizance in a given case, it says nothing about the bars on cognizance, and it does not touch the separate power to order an investigation, which is exercised before the mind is applied to the offence in this sense.

The formula was laid down on the 1973 Code; the corresponding provision is now BNSS s. 210, which also allows the police report to be furnished in electronic form and allows a complaint by a person authorised under a special law.