A former top cop has moved the Supreme Court requesting it to quash thousands of FIRs police have registered under a penal code section against those who had violated lockdown prohibitory orders, contending that the force had no power to book such cases under the provision.

Vikram Singh, former director-general of police, Uttar Pradesh, and chairman of independent think tank CASC, said only a judicial magistrate could direct police to book violators under the provision, IPC Section 188.

Advocate Viraj Gupta, who drafted the petition filed on Thursday, said that under Section 195 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, certain offences relating to disobedience of orders passed by public authorities could be treated as an offence only by a judicial magistrate upon a written complaint. A state’s police force, as such, could not on its own register an FIR and arrest people in such cases.

The top court and high courts too had passed rulings, he said, to the effect that under Section 188, police could not directly arrest a person without a direction from a court.

The former police officer’s plea to the top court comes at a time police have filed thousands of FIRs against Covid-19 lockdown violators under the penal provision, which can land a person in jail for up to six months if found guilty of disobeying a lawful order passed by a public authority.

The petition said a survey conducted by the Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change, the think tank, between March 23 and April 13 had found that 848 FIRs had been registered under Section 188 in 50 police stations in Delhi alone.

The number is many times higher in Uttar Pradesh, according to the state government’s own admission vide its Twitter handle: 15,378 FIRs against 48,503 people.

“If this is the situation in the national capital and (an) adjoining state, then the situation in other parts of the country can very well be imagined,” the petition said.

The petitioner also pointed out that while the top court had last month directed the release of certain categories of prisoners to reduce the possibility of the virus spreading inside the country’s overcrowded jails, the police were continuing to burden the criminal justice system through FIRs on petty offences.

Singh said that as a former DGP, he understood how the the police functioned and also the pain and suffering of those caught in the wheels of the criminal justice system.

“The petitioner is also concerned with the undue burden on police officers, who will have to do voluminous documentation in all such matters. The petitioner is in no way promoting the violation of the lockdown. The petitioner is only seeking effective action as per due process of law. The petitioner submits that stringent action must be taken against all deliberate violations of the lockdown, in accordance with the law,” Singh said.