There are three different entitlements here, and the refusal you are facing is answered by whichever one applies to you.
If you are the informant or the victim
This is the simplest case. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 provides that a copy of the information recorded under the first information provision shall be given forthwith, free of cost, to the informant or the victim. There is no fee, no application form and no discretion in the wording. A refusal is not a matter of the officer's convenience. Put the request in writing at the counter, ask for an acknowledgement on your copy, and if it is still refused, take the same letter to the Deputy Commissioner of Police or Superintendent of Police the same day.
If you are the accused
An accused is not the informant, so the statutory entitlement above does not apply, and the supply of documents in the ordinary course happens later. In September 2016 the Supreme Court dealt with exactly this gap and issued directions. An accused is entitled to a copy of the first information report at an earlier stage than the stage at which documents are furnished under the procedural code. A person who has reason to suspect that he has been roped into a criminal case may apply, through a representative or agent, for a certified copy before the concerned police officer or the Superintendent of Police on payment of the fee payable for such a copy from the court, and on such an application the copy shall be supplied within twenty four hours. Once the report has been forwarded to the magistrate or a special judge, an application for a certified copy on behalf of the accused is to be answered by the court within two working days.
The same directions deal with publication. Copies of first information reports, unless the offence is sensitive in nature, such as sexual offences, offences relating to insurgency or terrorism, offences under the child sexual offences legislation and offences of that category, are to be uploaded on the police website, or if there is none, on the official website of the State Government, within twenty four hours of registration, so that the accused or anyone connected can download it and move the court. Where there is a connectivity problem because of geographical location or another unavoidable difficulty, the time may be extended to forty eight hours and, for connectivity problems arising from geography, to a maximum of seventy two hours. A decision not to upload is not to be taken by an officer below the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police.
In a great many Bengaluru cases the report is already online and the trip to the station is unnecessary. Search by the police station and the crime number, or by the date. If it is not there and the offence is not in a sensitive category, the absence is itself a point you can put in your written application, because the direction on uploading is specific about who may decide not to upload.
The stage at which everything is supplied
Where the proceeding has been instituted on a police report, the magistrate must, without delay and in no case beyond fourteen days from the date of production or appearance of the accused, furnish free of cost to the accused, and to the victim if represented by an advocate, a copy of the police report, the first information report, the statements of all persons the prosecution proposes to examine as its witnesses subject to any part excluded on the police officer's request, the confessions and statements recorded by a magistrate, and any other document forwarded with the police report. Voluminous documents may be furnished electronically or made available for inspection, and supply in electronic form counts as due supply. That is the stage at which you get the file, and the fourteen day outer limit is worth quoting when it slips.
The order to follow
- Search the police website first. Save the page with the date visible.
- Apply in writing. To the officer in charge and, in the same letter or a second one, to the Superintendent of Police or Deputy Commissioner of Police. Keep an acknowledged copy or a registered post receipt.
- Apply to the court. Once the report has reached the magistrate, a certified copy application is the reliable route.
- Escalate in writing, not by phone. Every step should leave a document.
- Use the Right to Information Act as a fallback, keeping in mind that it is slower and that exemptions are commonly claimed for records relating to an ongoing investigation.
Why the copy matters
The first information report fixes the allegation, the date, the sections and the names, and almost every later step depends on reading it. Bail is argued on it. The decision whether the case can be challenged at the threshold is taken on it, and our guide on how a first information report is quashed explains why the text of the report is the starting point of that exercise. If the difficulty is that no report was registered at all, that is a different problem with a different answer, set out in our guide on the zero FIR and how to get a report registered. And where the report names you in a case you say is false, our note on the remedies open to a person falsely accused sets out what follows.