Law panel recommends limited roll out of e-FIR system; maximum two-year imprisonment for false FIRs

In tune with India’s progressive Digital India mission and National e-Governance Plan, the Law Commission has recommended allowing the registration of e-FIR for all cognizable offences where the accused is not known and the registration of such reports for all cognizable offences with a maximum punishment of three years where the identity of the accused is known.

“Due to the march of technology, means of communication have progressed in leaps and bounds. In such a landscape, clinging on to an archaic system of registering FIRs does not augur well for criminal reforms,” the Commission said in its 282th report on ‘Amendment in Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 for Enabling Online Registration of FIR’.