Knowingly false complaints are rarely punished
In 2024 the police closed 1.28 lakh cases as "false". Making a false charge to injure someone carries up to five years in prison, but the accused person usually has to start a new case after years of trial. No official source counts how often a court finds a complaint deliberately fabricated.
Open for ideas, evidence and questions.
What we know
BNS Section 248 (earlier IPC Section 211) punishes a false criminal charge made to injure someone with up to five years in prison or a fine of up to ₹2 lakh, and up to ten years where the false charge is of a serious offence. A court can file a complaint itself for offences connected with its own proceedings (BNSS Sections 215 and 379), but it has no duty to consider doing so and no deadline.
NCRB counts police closures as "false": 1,28,248 in 2024, or 3.6% of the cases police disposed of. That is the investigating officer's view, not a court's finding. NCRB publishes no figures on court findings of fabrication or on prosecutions that follow.
In October 2026 a Dainik Bhaskar sting in Bihar recorded a family offering to put anyone in jail under the SC/ST Act for ₹2.5 lakh: a complainant, three witnesses, and sections added "as needed", from just a name and a photograph. No police action had been reported a month later. Such rackets are not limited to one law: in 2021 Gurugram police arrested a woman who had filed seven rape cases against seven men at seven police stations, and in May 2026 Delhi Police broke up a gang that posed as police and threatened a man with a false rape case to demand ₹15 lakh.
Courts have improvised. In 2024 the Allahabad High Court ordered complainants who admitted filing false FIRs to obtain compensation to return the ₹75,000 they had received. Germany lets a court order a person who made a deliberately or recklessly false report to pay the costs of the case and the accused's expenses.
Open questions
- How many cases did police in your district close as false last year, and in how many was the complainant prosecuted?
- Should a court that acquits be required to decide, within a deadline, whether there is evidence of deliberate fabrication?
- How can the law punish proven lies without frightening genuine victims away from the police?
- Who should pay the falsely accused person first, the State or the person who lied?
Sources
- NCRB Crime in India 2024, Volume III (Table 17A.2)
- ThePrint: Allahabad High Court orders refund of relief after a false FIR (September 2024)
- Germany: Code of Criminal Procedure §469
- Dainik Bhaskar: Bihar gang arranges fake SC/ST cases for money (October 2026)
- Bhaskar English: Bihar SC/ST Act racket (video)
- ThePrint: Gurugram woman who filed seven rape cases held for extortion (2021)
- The Hawk: Delhi dating-app extortion racket busted (May 2026)
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