207. Duties of Assistant Sub-Inspectors. [§ 12, Act V, 1861].
(a)The object of posting an Assistant Sub-Inspector to a police-station is to relieve the investigating Sub-Inspector of all clerical and routine duties. To ensure this relief superior officers should make Assistant Sub-Inspectors definitely responsible for these duties and punishable for omissions. The Sub-Inspectors will of course exercise general supervision but should not be held responsible unless there is gross neglect all round pointing to an entire absence of supervision.(b)Assistant Sub-Inspectors shall be responsible for all returns and registers except the First Information Report, Case Diary, General Diary and Village Crime Note-Book. The first three cannot by law by made over to them unless they happen at the time to be officers-in-charge. Ordinarily entries in the Village Crime Note-Book will be made by the investigating officer or the officer who acquires information which is required to be entered, but the senior Sub-Inspector will be responsible for its proper maintenance.(c)When the officer-in-charge and the junior Sub-Inspectors, if any, are absent or ill, the senior Assistant Sub-Inspector is competent under section 4(p), Code of Criminal Procedure, to assume charge of the station and to exercise any of the functions of an officer-in-charge. Except in unavoidable emergencies, however, he will not be employed in investigation. Even when the Sub-Inspector is absent, he shall, as a rule, on receipt of.information of a cognizable case, do no more than take such preliminary steps (e.g., recording the First Information Report, and arranging for the pursuit of thieves) as may be necessary. Then, if the Sub-Inspector is within the limits of the police-station, the Assistant Sub-Inspector shall send the complainant and the parties at once to him with a copy of the First Information Report. Only if the Sub-Inspector is ill or absent from his jurisdiction, shall the Assistant Sub-Inspector take up the investigation himself.(d)When he can be spared from the station, he may and shall be freely deputed to pay night visits to surveilles, to enquire into their mode of living, to realize fines, to enquire into simple cases of unnatural death, to take command of patrols and parties of police detailed for guard, escort or similar duty.
