When the police will not register your FIR or refuse to investigate, you can bypass them and file a private criminal complaint directly before a Magistrate under Section 223 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) 2023. The Magistrate examines you and your witnesses on oath, and under BNSS must give the proposed accused an opportunity to be heard before taking cognizance.
This is the formal route when Section 175(3) BNSS (the old CrPC 156(3) power to order police investigation) has been tried or is not enough. Below is the step-by-step procedure, what changed from the old CrPC Section 200, the documents you need, the mistakes that get complaints dismissed, and a worked example.
Under the old Code of Criminal Procedure, Section 200 let a Magistrate examine the complainant and witnesses on oath and proceed to cognizance without ever hearing the person being accused. BNSS Section 223 keeps the oath examination but adds a mandatory step: the proposed accused must be given an opportunity of being heard before cognizance is taken on a complaint.
In Parvinder Singh v. Directorate of Enforcement, 2026 INSC 519 (decided 19 May 2026, bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and N. Kotiswar Singh), the Supreme Court held that the word “shall” in the first proviso to Section 223(1) is mandatory. Cognizance taken without first hearing the proposed accused is void ab initio. The Court declined to refer the question to a larger bench.
Real-life example. In Jabalpur district, Dr. Shrawan Kumar Pathak filed three written FIR applications between 2 February and 10 March 2026 over a forged property document, and the police refused to register a case. On 24 March 2026 he filed a private criminal complaint before the Judicial Magistrate, attaching his refusal acknowledgements and the disputed deed. The Magistrate examined him on oath under Section 223, and before taking cognizance, issued notice to the proposed accused so he could be heard, as the first proviso now requires. After hearing both sides, the Magistrate directed an inquiry under the Section 225 region before deciding whether to issue process. Total court fee and drafting cost: ₹3,500.
Before you go to the Magistrate, use RTI to pin down what the police did with your complaint. File an RTI application with the police Public Information Officer asking for the status of your FIR application, the daily diary entry, and the recorded reasons for refusing to register the case (RTI Act 2005, Section 6(1)). If the PIO stays silent or denies records, escalate with a first appeal. These records become your proof at step 2 that you exhausted the ordinary route.
Draft both with the wiki tools: the AI RTI Drafter for the application and the First Appeal Builder if the PIO does not respond.
Yes. A refusal or inaction by the police is the typical trigger for a private complaint under Section 223 BNSS. Keep proof that you first tried the ordinary route, ideally a request under Section 175(3) BNSS asking the Magistrate to order a police investigation, before invoking the private-complaint power.
Yes. The first proviso to Section 223(1) BNSS is mandatory. In Parvinder Singh v. Directorate of Enforcement, 2026 INSC 519, the Supreme Court held that cognizance taken without giving the proposed accused an opportunity of being heard is void ab initio.
Section 175(3) BNSS lets a Magistrate order the police to investigate, the equivalent of the old CrPC Section 156(3). Section 223 is the alternative: the Magistrate takes cognizance directly on your complaint after examining you on oath, used when the police route fails.
After examination and after hearing the proposed accused, the Magistrate may take cognizance, or may postpone issuing process and hold an inquiry or direct an investigation before deciding whether to summon the accused (the Section 225 region of BNSS).
Yes, the law allows it, but a clearly drafted complaint and a tidy set of witnesses and documents make a real difference. The oath examination under Section 223(1) is built on your written statement, so precision matters.