The Supreme Court has held that a Magistrate's rejection of an application under Section 156(3) CrPC, directing police investigation, does not prevent the police from subsequently registering an FIR on their own. The Court characterised such a rejection as a threshold order that does not adjudicate the merits of the complaint. Police power to register an FIR under Section 154 CrPC is independent and cannot be extinguished by a Magistrate's preliminary refusal to direct investigation.

This ruling turns on a foundational distinction in criminal procedure: the source of police power to investigate is Section 154 CrPC (mandatory FIR registration for cognisable offences), which is entirely independent of the Magistrate's supervisory power under Section 156(3) CrPC.

Section 156(3) allows a Magistrate to direct police to register and investigate a case when a complainant approaches the Magistrate directly. When a Magistrate rejects such an application, that order is rendered at the threshold — it simply means the Magistrate declined to exercise supervisory jurisdiction at that stage. It is not an order on the merits of the allegation, and crucially, it is not a bar on any other remedy.

The Court's reasoning protects two things simultaneously: first, the statutory right of any person to lodge an FIR directly at a police station under Section 154; second, the complainant's right to pursue a private complaint under Section 200 CrPC before a Magistrate. Neither avenue is closed by a Section 156(3) refusal.

Under BNSS 2023 (which replaces CrPC), the equivalent provision is Section 175(3), and Section 173 replaces Section 154. Examiners will test whether aspirants understand that the S.156(3)/S.175(3) route is one of three parallel complaint mechanisms — FIR, private complaint, and Magistrate-directed investigation — and that these tracks do not merge into a single hierarchy where one refusal bars all others.