An FIR is the start of an investigation, not a finding of guilt. But the decisions taken in the first week usually shape the whole case.
1. Get the FIR and read the sections
You have a right to a copy. FIRs are now registered under Section 173 of the BNSS, with offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Most are uploaded to the state police portal. The exact sections decide whether the offence is bailable or non-bailable, and whether police can arrest without a warrant.
Section 173(2) requires a copy of the recorded information to be given forthwith and free of cost to the informant or the victim. An accused person ordinarily obtains it from the Karnataka State Police portal, where FIRs registered in the state are published, and takes a certified copy from the jurisdictional Magistrate's court for use in court. Settle four things from it before you do anything else: whether the offence is cognizable, whether it is bailable, the maximum punishment, and which court will try it. Everything that follows turns on those four answers.
2. Do not try to handle the police alone
Statements made informally at a station have a way of resurfacing. You must co-operate with the investigation. You are not required to talk your way out of it, and Article 20(3) protects you against being compelled to be a witness against yourself.
Know what the two kinds of statement are. A statement recorded by the investigating officer under Section 180 BNSS is not signed by you and is not substantive evidence, but it can be used to contradict you for the rest of the case. A confession is different: it has to be recorded by a Magistrate under Section 183 BNSS, and the Magistrate must first tell you that you are not bound to make one and that it can be used against you. If you tell the Magistrate you are unwilling to confess, he cannot then authorise your detention in police custody.
3. Decide on anticipatory bail immediately
If the offence is non-bailable and there is a real prospect of arrest, apply under Section 482 BNSS before the Sessions Court. This is time-sensitive. Which court, what the application must annex and how the hearing runs are set out in our guide on anticipatory bail in India. If instead you receive a written notice under Section 35 BNSS directing you to appear before the investigating officer, attend on the date given, take a lawyer, and keep the stamped acknowledgement. Complying with that notice is what keeps a no-arrest case a no-arrest case; failing to comply is the commonest way people talk themselves into custody.
- A certified copy of the FIR, and a note of every section invoked
- Whether each section is bailable or non-bailable, and the maximum sentence
- Your phone, unwiped, with call logs and messages for the relevant dates
- Bank statements, travel records, attendance or location evidence for those dates
- Names and contact details of anyone who can speak to where you were
- Every document relating to the underlying transaction or dispute
- Any notice under Section 35 BNSS, which is a notice to appear, not an arrest
4. Preserve your own evidence now
Messages, emails, call records, bank entries, CCTV, travel records. Under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, electronic records need a proper certificate to be admissible, so preserve devices rather than just forwarding screenshots.
The certificate matters more than people expect. Section 63 of that Adhiniyam makes a computer output admissible only on stated conditions, and requires the certificate to be filed along with the electronic record on each occasion it is tendered, signed both by the person in charge of the device and by an expert. So preserve the handset, laptop or hard disk untouched, and have anything important imaged by somebody competent. CCTV is the item most often lost, because most systems overwrite within weeks; if footage matters, write to whoever controls that system now asking them to preserve it, and keep proof of the request.
5. Consider whether the FIR is challengeable
Where an FIR does not disclose an offence even taken at its highest, or is malicious, or is a civil dispute dressed up as a crime, the High Court can quash it under Section 528 BNSS. That is fact-specific and not routine.
The point to grasp early is that it is easier before a chargesheet than after, so the assessment should be made now rather than after cognizance is taken. The categories in which courts actually exercise the power, and the papers a petition has to carry, are set out in our guide on how to quash an FIR. Where the complaint is not merely weak but fabricated, there are separate remedies against the complainant, and those are dealt with in our note on being falsely accused of a crime.
The timetable you are now on
It helps to see the whole clock. If you are not arrested, the investigation proceeds on notice and you attend when called. If you are arrested, you must be produced before a Magistrate within twenty-four hours, and detention beyond that requires an order under Section 187 BNSS. Under the BNSS the fifteen days of police custody need not be taken in one block: it may be taken in whole or in parts at any time during the first forty or sixty days of the detention period, which is a real change from the old law and is worth knowing before the first remand hearing. The investigation itself must finish within sixty days, or ninety days where the offence is punishable with death, life imprisonment or ten years or more, failing which the right to default bail arises. Separately, Section 193 BNSS obliges the police to inform the informant or victim of the progress of the investigation within ninety days, so silence from the station is not something either side has to simply accept.
Do not contact the complainant directly to "sort it out". In matrimonial and harassment cases in particular, that call or message becomes an annexure. Any settlement talks should go through lawyers.