Zero FIR and e-FIR under the BNSS: what the law actually requires

TL;DR: A zero FIR is a first information report that any police station in India must register for a cognizable offence, even if the offence happened outside that station’s jurisdiction. Section 173(1) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 makes this obligation explicit by allowing information to be given “irrespective of the area where it is committed.” The same subsection lets you give that information electronically, but an e-FIR must be signed in person within three days.

What a zero FIR is

A zero FIR is a first information report registered by a police station for a cognizable offence that occurred outside that station’s territorial jurisdiction. The name comes from the number it is given at registration: 00, or “zero,” rather than the station’s running serial number, because it does not belong to that station’s case series. Once registered, it is transferred to the station that has territorial jurisdiction over the place where the offence occurred, and that station renumbers it and continues the investigation. It is one of several procedural innovations introduced when the BNSS replaced the CrPC on 1 July 2024, alongside mandatory forensic visits and video-conferencing for trials.

The problem a zero FIR solves is narrow and specific. For decades, complainants who approached a police station to report a crime that had happened somewhere else, a different district, a different state, or a location they could not pin down, were routinely turned away with the words “this is not our jurisdiction, go to the police station near where it happened.” For a woman assaulted while travelling, a person robbed on a highway crossing several districts, or a family whose relative went missing in a state they do not live in, that instruction could mean losing hours or days at the exact point when evidence is freshest and an accused is most reachable.

Jurisdiction was never meant to be a gate for registration. It governs which police station investigates a case, not whether a police officer is permitted to record that a cognizable offence has been reported to them. The Supreme Court settled the underlying question of mandatory registration in Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh, decided by a five-judge Constitution Bench on 12 November 2013 and reported at (2014) 2 SCC 1. The Court held that registration of an FIR is mandatory once information disclosing a cognizable offence is placed before a police officer under Section 154(1) of the CrPC, then in force, and that the officer has no discretion to withhold registration or first satisfy themselves that the allegation is credible. The judgment carved out a narrow exception: the police may conduct a preliminary inquiry before registering an FIR in a limited set of case categories, including matrimonial and family disputes, commercial disputes, medical negligence, and corruption cases, where a threshold check is needed to establish whether the information discloses a cognizable offence at all. That exception is about the nature of the allegation, not about where it happened. Jurisdiction was never one of the grounds Lalita Kumari recognised for refusing to register. The distinction between an offence the police must register on receipt and one they need not is itself governed by whether it is cognizable or non-cognizable, a classification that decides far more than just the zero FIR question.

The BNSS provision behind the zero FIR

The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNSS), which replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 on 1 July 2024, does not use the phrase “zero FIR” anywhere in its text. It is a term of practice, not a defined term in the statute. What the BNSS does is put the underlying obligation directly into the words of the registration provision, closing off the argument that a station could decline registration for want of territorial jurisdiction.

Section 173(1) of the BNSS opens: “Every information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence, irrespective of the area where it is committed, may be given orally or by electronic communication to an officer in charge of a police station.” That phrase, “irrespective of the area where it is committed,” is the statutory basis for the zero FIR. Under the corresponding provision of the old CrPC, Section 154, there was no equivalent line, and the zero FIR obligation rested on a combination of Lalita Kumari, a 2015 Ministry of Home Affairs advisory to states, and state police standing orders. The BNSS is the first time the obligation to register regardless of location has been written into the bare text of the registration section itself. For the full set of renumbered provisions carried over from the CrPC, see the BNSS to CrPC section mapping.

The section goes on to prescribe how that information is taken down. If given orally, it must be reduced to writing, read back to the informant, and signed by them. If given by electronic communication, meaning an e-FIR, it is “taken on record by him on being signed within three days by the person giving it.” A separate proviso to subsection (1) requires that where the information concerns specified offences against women, including sexual offences under Sections 64 to 68 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, it must be recorded by a woman police officer or a woman officer, and where the informant is temporarily or permanently mentally or physically disabled, at a place of the informant’s choice with special assistance and, where necessary, videography.

Subsection (2) obliges the police to give “a copy of the information as recorded under sub-section (1) … forthwith, free of cost, to the informant or the victim.” Subsection (4) gives a person aggrieved by a refusal to record information the right to send the substance of that information in writing to the Superintendent of Police, or, in the alternative, to approach a magistrate. What Section 173 does not itself spell out is a formal, timed procedure for physically transmitting a zero FIR from the receiving station to the station with jurisdiction. That transfer step is established police practice, following the same MHA advisory and state standing orders that predate the BNSS, and it is expected to happen without delay once the offence’s location is identified. If a station drags its feet on the transfer itself, that is a separate complaint from the refusal to register in the first place, and the remedy runs through the same escalation channel described later in this piece.

It is worth being precise about what the “irrespective of area” language does and does not do. It removes jurisdiction as a ground for refusing to record information about a cognizable offence. It does not transfer investigative responsibility permanently to the receiving station, and it does not let a complainant choose which station investigates their case by walking into whichever one is most convenient. The investigation itself is still carried out, almost always, by the station with territorial jurisdiction over the offence, once the zero FIR reaches it.

Two other BNSS provisions sit close to Section 173 and are easy to confuse with the zero FIR obligation. Section 173(3) allows a preliminary inquiry, with the prior permission of an officer not below the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police, for offences punishable with imprisonment of three years or more but less than seven years, to be completed within fourteen days, before a decision is taken on registration. This is the BNSS’s codified version of the Lalita Kumari exception, and it applies to whether the facts disclose a cognizable offence at all, never to where the offence occurred. That fourteen-day window sits alongside the BNSS’s other investigation and trial deadlines, catalogued in full in our BNSS statutory timelines checklist, including the chargesheet filing limits that determine when an accused becomes entitled to default bail under Section 187 BNSS. Section 174 BNSS, the successor to Section 155 CrPC, governs non-cognizable offences and a different document entirely, the non-cognizable report, discussed below. Confusing the three, zero FIR, the preliminary inquiry carve-out, and the NCR route, is one of the most common ways a legitimate complaint gets deflected at the counter.

Zero FIR vs regular FIR vs e-FIR vs NCR

These four terms describe different things, and readers who have just been to a police station often leave with the wrong one. A regular FIR, a zero FIR, and an e-FIR are all the same document type, an FIR, distinguished only by where the offence occurred and how the information was given. An NCR is a different document altogether, used for a different category of offence.

Feature	Regular FIR	Zero FIR	e-FIR	NCR
Applies to	Cognizable offence within the station’s jurisdiction	Cognizable offence outside the station’s jurisdiction	Cognizable offence, reported electronically	Non-cognizable offence
Police may refuse for want of jurisdiction	✗	✗	✗	Not applicable, jurisdiction is not the issue
Statutory basis	Section 173(1) BNSS	Section 173(1) BNSS	Section 173(1)(ii) BNSS	Section 174 BNSS
Investigation begins immediately, without a magistrate’s order	✓	✓ (after transfer to the jurisdictional station)	✓ (once signed)	✗, requires magistrate’s order under Section 174(2) BNSS
Requires the informant’s signature	✓, at the time of recording	✓, at the time of recording	✓, but within three days, not at the time of submission	✓
Free copy given to the informant	✓	✓	✓	✓
Transferred to another station	No	Yes, to the station with jurisdiction	Only if the offence occurred outside the receiving station’s area	No

The distinction that trips up the most people is the last row for the NCR column combined with the second row. An NCR is not a lesser FIR and it is not what you get when police “downgrade” your complaint out of reluctance to investigate. It exists because Indian criminal procedure has always treated non-cognizable offences, generally less serious ones such as simple hurt, defamation, or public nuisance, differently: the police cannot investigate them on their own initiative and need a magistrate’s direction first. If your complaint genuinely discloses only a non-cognizable offence, an NCR is the correct document and there is nothing irregular about receiving one. The problem arises when a station records an NCR for facts that plainly disclose a cognizable offence, as a way of avoiding the registration duty. That is a refusal to register in substance, dressed up as a different document, and it is challengeable on the same footing as an outright refusal. This pattern shows up often in complaints under Section 498A BNS relating to cruelty by a husband or his relatives, where police discretion at the registration stage has drawn its own body of case law on quashing proceedings that misuse the provision, a separate question from whether registration itself was proper.

What an e-FIR is under the BNSS

An e-FIR is information about a cognizable offence given by electronic communication rather than in person, orally, at the police station counter. Section 173(1)(ii) BNSS is the provision that authorises this: it allows information “by electronic communication,” and directs that it be “taken on record … on being signed within three days by the person giving it.”

That three-day window is the detail that matters most and the one most likely to be reported incorrectly, so it is worth stating precisely what the statute says and does not say. The BNSS does not require you to visit the police station before submitting an e-FIR, and it does not treat the e-FIR as provisional or incomplete the moment it is submitted electronically. What it requires is that the person who gave that information sign it in person within three days of giving it. Until that signature is obtained, the e-FIR sits on record but is not treated as a completed, signed information under Section 173(1). Missing the three-day window is not addressed in the bare text of Section 173 itself: nothing in the section states what happens if the informant does not appear to sign within three days, and this piece will not speculate on that consequence beyond noting that the safest course, if you have filed electronically, is to appear and sign well inside the three days rather than test what happens if you do not.

The mode of electronic communication is not itself defined narrowly in Section 173; the provision refers generally to information given “by electronic communication.” In practice, several state police forces have set up dedicated online portals or mobile applications through which a cognizable offence can be reported electronically, alongside long-standing options such as email to a designated police address. Availability, design, and reliability of these portals vary by state, and this piece does not assert that any specific state portal is currently operational; check the relevant state police website before relying on one, and treat the telephone emergency number 112 (which routes to the Emergency Response Support System in most states) as the fallback for anything urgent, since it connects to a human who can direct a patrol unit and does not depend on a working web form.

Two features of the e-FIR route are frequently misunderstood. First, the electronic report is not a lesser or preliminary version of an FIR: once signed within the three-day window, it is an FIR in the full sense, carrying the same investigative and evidentiary status as one recorded in person. Second, the free-copy entitlement under Section 173(2) BNSS applies to an e-FIR exactly as it does to a regular one; the police cannot treat electronic filing as a reason to withhold the copy or delay it beyond what “forthwith” requires.

What to carry and what to insist on at the police station

The practical mechanics of a zero FIR filing are the same as a regular FIR, with one addition: you may need to be firm about the fact that the offence’s location outside the station’s area is not a valid reason to turn you away.

Carry a form of photo identification, since the police will typically want to record your name and address accurately. If you have any documentary evidence relevant to the offence, medical records, a screenshot, a bank statement, photographs, bring copies rather than only originals, and be ready to state clearly what happened, when, and where, even if you are not certain of the exact location. You do not need a lawyer present to file an FIR, though nothing prevents one from accompanying you.

When you narrate the offence, state plainly, if it is the case, that it happened in another jurisdiction. Do not let the officer’s statement that “this is not our area” end the conversation. The correct response, and the one grounded directly in Section 173(1) BNSS, is that the officer is obliged to register the information regardless of where the offence occurred, and to forward it to the station that does have jurisdiction. If the officer insists on redirecting you elsewhere without registering anything, that is itself the refusal described in Section 173(4), and the escalation route below applies.

Once the FIR is recorded, three things should happen and are worth checking before you leave the station. The information should be read back to you if given orally, and you should sign it only after confirming it accurately reflects what you said. You are entitled to a copy of the recorded information, free of cost, and “forthwith” under Section 173(2), which in practice means before you leave the police station, not by post at some later date. The copy should show an FIR number (or the zero designation if it is a zero FIR pending transfer), the date and time of registration, the name of the recording officer, and the police station. If any of these are missing from the copy handed to you, ask for them to be added or noted, since the copy is your proof that registration happened at all, and the date on it can matter later for limitation and delay arguments. If a station later denies having a copy on file or delays producing one, an RTI application to the police department is a separate, formal route to the same record.

The decision flow at the station

flowchart TD
    A[You report a cognizable offence] --> B{Officer willing to register?}
    B -- Offence happened here --> C[Regular FIR registered, Section 173 BNSS]
    B -- Offence happened elsewhere --> D[Zero FIR registered, Section 173 BNSS]
    D --> E[Forwarded to the station with jurisdiction]
    B -- Refuses outright --> F{Stated reason}
    F -- Claims wrong jurisdiction --> G[Insist: jurisdiction is not a valid ground to refuse]
    F -- Tells you to file online instead --> H[File e-FIR, then sign in person within 3 days]
    G --> I{Still refuses?}
    H --> I
    I -- Yes --> J[Written complaint to the Superintendent of Police]
    J --> K{SP acts on it?}
    K -- Yes --> L[SP directs registration or investigates directly]
    K -- No response --> M["Approach a Magistrate, Section 173(4) BNSS"]
    C --> N["Free copy given, Section 173(2) BNSS"]
    D --> N
    H --> N

When the police still refuse

Section 173(4) BNSS gives you a direct remedy if a station will not register despite your information disclosing a cognizable offence, whether the stated reason is jurisdiction, disbelief, or nothing at all. You may send the substance of your complaint in writing, by registered post is the safest method for a paper trail, to the Superintendent of Police (or the equivalent city or commissionerate authority) with jurisdiction over that district. If the SP is satisfied that the information does disclose a cognizable offence, they must either investigate the case personally or direct an investigation by a subordinate officer, and that investigating officer has all the powers of an officer in charge of a police station.

Before citing Lalita Kumari or any High Court order applying it in a written complaint or petition, confirm the citation is still good law rather than lifting it from a secondary summary; a citator that flags overruled or distinguished authority, such as the one built into Niyam, catches this before a filing goes out with a precedent that has since been narrowed. If that written complaint also produces no result, the remaining route is judicial. This can take the form of a private complaint before a magistrate, or, in a genuinely urgent case, a writ of mandamus filed before a High Court under Article 226 seeking a direction to register the FIR, an approach the higher judiciary has entertained repeatedly since well before the BNSS. This piece covers the zero FIR and e-FIR specifically; it does not walk through the full ladder of remedies for refusal to register, including drafting the SP complaint, magistrate applications, and writ practice in detail, since that is its own subject. For the complete escalation path, see the companion guides on FIR registration under Section 173 BNSS and what to do when police refuse to register an FIR.

Where zero FIR matters most

The zero FIR provision is not an abstract procedural fix. It solves a real, recurring category of case where the old jurisdiction-first approach caused the most damage.

Offences against women. A woman assaulted while travelling, on public transport, at a bus stand, or in an unfamiliar city, is frequently closest to a police station that has no territorial connection to where the assault happened. Requiring her to first identify and travel to the correct station before anyone would record her complaint meant losing time during exactly the window when medical examination, forensic collection, and identification of the accused are most reliable. The zero FIR lets the nearest station take the report immediately and forward it, so the clock on investigation starts without that detour. The same registration difficulties have historically shown up in complaints under the POSH Act and in domestic violence and residence-rights matters, where the offence and the victim’s present location are often in different districts.

Road accidents and offences in transit. A hit-and-run, or an assault or robbery that begins in one district and ends, or is reported, in another, does not always have a single obvious jurisdiction. A victim or a bystander should not need to work out which district line the vehicle crossed before a police station will take down what happened.

Cyber offences. Cyber offences often have no clear physical location at all: the victim may be in one city, the server in another, and the accused in a third. Insisting on jurisdiction as a precondition for registration makes little sense when the offence itself does not have a single physical situs. A zero FIR lets the victim’s local station take the complaint and route it onward, or, in practice, toward whichever cybercrime cell or jurisdiction the offence is eventually attributed to.

Offences discovered away from where they occurred. Someone may only discover they have been defrauded, or that a relative is missing, after they have travelled home to a different city or state. Waiting until they can physically return to the place the offence occurred before anyone will register their complaint defeats the point of prompt reporting.

Across all of these situations, the practical effect of Section 173(1) BNSS is the same: the location of the police station you happen to be standing in front of, and the location of the offence, are two different questions, and only the second one is relevant to whether the police must investigate. The first question decides nothing about whether they must record what you tell them.

For lawyers advising clients through this process, or building out a matter file where the FIR date, the transfer date, and the eventual investigating station all need to be tracked precisely, a citation-grounded research workflow that keeps the applicable BNSS provisions and any High Court guidance on zero FIR practice in one place removes the need to re-verify section numbers on every matter. Niyam indexes judgments and statutory text together, so a search on zero FIR procedure surfaces both the governing BNSS provision and any reported decisions applying it, without the researcher having to cross-reference a coaching-site summary against the bare act by hand.

Where the dispute is not about registration itself but about whether the FIR, once registered, correctly discloses an offence at all, for instance where an accused seeks to have it quashed for vagueness, that is a separate line of authority worth reading alongside this piece; Niyam’s coverage of FIR quashing where the complaint fails to state the allegations sets out that standard.

Frequently asked questions

What is a zero FIR in simple terms?

A zero FIR is a first information report that a police station registers for a cognizable offence even though the offence happened outside that station’s area. It gets a temporary “00” number instead of the station’s regular serial number and is then sent to the police station that actually has jurisdiction, which takes over the investigation under its own FIR number.

Which law governs zero FIR now that the CrPC has been replaced?

Section 173(1) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, which came into force on 1 July 2024, governs it. The subsection requires that information about a cognizable offence be recorded “irrespective of the area where it is committed.” The CrPC’s Section 154, which the BNSS replaced, did not contain this language; the zero FIR obligation under the old law rested on Supreme Court precedent and administrative advisories rather than the statute’s own wording.

Can a police station refuse to register an FIR because the offence happened in a different state?

No. Section 173(1) BNSS requires registration of information disclosing a cognizable offence regardless of where it occurred, whether that is a different police station in the same district or a different state entirely. Refusal on jurisdictional grounds is not a valid exercise of police discretion, and a person facing that refusal can invoke Section 173(4) BNSS to escalate to the Superintendent of Police or a magistrate.

What is an e-FIR under the BNSS?

An e-FIR is information about a cognizable offence submitted electronically rather than in person, authorised under Section 173(1)(ii) BNSS. The provision requires that the information be signed by the informant within three days of submission for it to be taken on record as a complete FIR. It carries the same legal status as an FIR filed in person once that signature step is completed.

What happens if I do not sign an e-FIR within three days?

The bare text of Section 173 BNSS does not spell out a specific consequence for missing the three-day signing window. What is clear from the statute is that signature within three days is the condition attached to taking electronic information on record under Section 173(1)(ii). The safest course is to visit the police station and sign well inside that window rather than rely on any assumption about what happens if you miss it.

Is a zero FIR less valid or less serious than a regular FIR?

No. A zero FIR is a full FIR in every legal sense from the moment of registration. The only thing that distinguishes it is that it was recorded at a station outside the offence’s territorial jurisdiction and is then transferred, along with a renumbering, to the station that has jurisdiction, which continues the investigation.

What is the difference between a zero FIR and an NCR?

A zero FIR is for a cognizable offence and can be registered at any police station regardless of location; it triggers investigation immediately. An NCR, or non-cognizable report, is for a non-cognizable offence, generally a less serious one, and it does not by itself authorise the police to investigate; a magistrate’s direction is required first, under Section 174(2) BNSS. The two documents apply to different categories of offence, and one is not a downgraded version of the other.

Does the officer have to give me a copy of my zero FIR or e-FIR?

Yes. Section 173(2) BNSS requires that a copy of the recorded information be given to the informant or the victim “forthwith” and “free of cost.” This applies equally to a regular FIR, a zero FIR, and a signed e-FIR. If a station declines to hand over a copy, ask for it in writing and note the refusal for your later complaint if needed.

Can I file a zero FIR for a crime against a woman at any police station?

Yes, and this is one of the situations Section 173(1) BNSS is specifically designed to address. A woman reporting an offence against her can approach the nearest police station regardless of where the offence occurred, and the officer must record the information and, if it involves a specified sexual offence under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, ensure it is recorded by a woman police officer or woman officer under the proviso to Section 173(1).

What should I do if the police tell me to come back later or file online instead of registering my complaint immediately?

Point out that Section 173(1) BNSS requires the officer to record a cognizable offence when reported, whether in person or electronically, and that being redirected without any record being made is effectively a refusal. If the officer persists, ask for the refusal to be noted, or state that you intend to escalate under Section 173(4) BNSS to the Superintendent of Police. Filing an e-FIR is a lawful alternative if you genuinely prefer it, but it does not excuse the officer from taking down an in-person report when one is offered.

Can a zero FIR be filed for a cyber offence when the accused’s location is unknown?

Yes. Cyber offences are one of the clearest cases for the zero FIR mechanism, since the offence often has no single obvious location: the victim, the accused, and the servers involved may all be in different places. The victim’s local police station must record the information and forward it appropriately rather than declining to act until jurisdiction is established.

What if the police register an NCR instead of an FIR for something that sounds like a cognizable offence to me?

That is worth challenging. If the facts you have described genuinely disclose a cognizable offence, an NCR is the wrong document, and registering one instead of an FIR has the same practical effect as refusing registration. You can raise this directly at the station, citing that the offence described is cognizable, and if unresolved, escalate through the same Section 173(4) BNSS route used for outright refusals.

Do I need a lawyer to file a zero FIR or an e-FIR?

No. Filing an FIR, including a zero FIR or e-FIR, does not require a lawyer. It is a right available to any person with information about a cognizable offence. A lawyer can be useful if the police are uncooperative, if the matter is complex, or if you need to escalate to a magistrate or file a writ petition, but the initial act of reporting does not require legal representation.

Where can I file an e-FIR online?

Several state police forces operate their own online portals or mobile applications for reporting cognizable offences electronically, and availability and functionality vary by state; check your state police’s official website for the current option. The nationwide emergency number 112 is a reliable fallback for anything urgent, since it connects you to a person who can dispatch help rather than a form that may or may not be monitored in real time.

What did the Supreme Court hold in Lalita Kumari that is relevant to zero FIR?

Lalita Kumari v. Government of Uttar Pradesh, (2014) 2 SCC 1, decided by a Constitution Bench on 12 November 2013, held that registration of an FIR is mandatory once information disclosing a cognizable offence is received, and that police have no discretion to withhold registration to first assess credibility, subject to a narrow preliminary-inquiry exception for specific categories of case such as matrimonial disputes and medical negligence. The judgment did not deal with jurisdiction directly, since it concerned the CrPC-era Section 154, but its core holding on mandatory registration is the doctrinal foundation the zero FIR obligation under Section 173 BNSS builds on: an officer’s duty to record cognizable-offence information is not conditional, whether the condition asserted is disbelief or, as with zero FIR, location.

Can I insist on a zero FIR being registered at any police station I choose, even far from both my home and the offence location?

The obligation under Section 173(1) BNSS is that the officer you approach must record the information regardless of where the offence occurred; it does not give you an unlimited choice of any station in India for convenience unrelated to the offence or your own presence. In practice, people file zero FIRs at the station nearest to where they are, where the offence’s actual location is far away or unclear, which is exactly the situation the provision is meant to cover.

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