Aniket Giri
(ADVOCATE)
24 July 2020
“Non-cognizable offence” means an offence for which, and “non-cognizable case” means a case in which, a police officer has no authority to arrest without warrant. Such offences are minimal offences where the injury done to the society is comparatively small. The aggrieved party expected to file a complaint before criminal proceedings starts. The non-cognizable offences contains more private wrong. Therefore, initiative is taken by citizen to prosecute the offender and also collect the evidence. A police officer cannot arrest without a warrant and such an officer has neither the duty nor the power to investigate into such offences without the authority given by a Judicial Magistrate.
Examples of Non-Cognizable offenses. These offences are not much serious in nature.
Assault,
Cheating,
Forgery
Difference between Cognizable and non-cognizable offence:-
The offence in which the police suo motu takes cognizance of crime and also does not need approval of court, known as a cognizable offence. While, in non-cognizable, police has no authority to arrest a person for crime on its own, without prior approval of court.
In cognizable, the police can arrest a person without any warrant. While, in case of non-cognizable offence, a warrant must needed for arrest of person.
In cognizable, court’s order is not required to start an investigation. Conversely, in the non-cognizable offence, first of all, court’s order should be obtained for undertaking an investigation.
Cognizable are heinous crimes, whereas non-cognizable offences are not so serious.
Cognizable encompasses murder, rape, theft, kidnapping, counterfeiting, etc. On the contrary, non-cognizable offences include offences like forgery, cheating, assault, defamation and so forth.
For a cognizable, one can file FIR or make a complaint to the magistrate. Unlike, in case of non-cognizable offence one can only make a complaint to the magistrate.