Question

Mr. Mark Smith loved gardening. He had several expensive tools that he kept in his yard. He lived in a good neighborhood and did not worry about his expensive tools stored outside. One weekend, he found a couple of tools missing; puzzled he asked his family if they had moved the tools. Everyone told him that they had not touched the tools. Next weekend, he noticed that another tool was gone.

At that point, he was frustrated and wanted to take some action.

1.Do you think, he can file a legal complaint and if yes, against whom?

2.Develop a short case including the complaint process for Mark.

3.What would be the cost of a legal complaint? Give a numeric example to Mark.

Answer 1

1.    Yes, in my opinion Mark is allowed to file a legal complaint about the theft of his gardening tools. This he can do with a legal representative at any police station. The complaint can be either in the form of verbal or written complaint. The complaint will be for no specific person but the nature of the complaint will be ‘criminal complaint’.

2.    The short case will be-

Mr. Mark has lost a number of his expensive gardening tools from his yard. He does not have a complaint against any specific person, because the thief is not known to him. He even does not any suspects. Initially the robber took only few tools in one week and in the other week, some other tools are missing. This means that the robber or thief knows about where Mr. Mark keeps his gardening tools. This is a recurring affair and the thief must be grabbed soon.

The process for lodging the criminal complaint will be-

The complaint is a written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged. The complainant can file FIR at any police station in either the written or in a verbal form. A First Information Report is the initial step in a criminal case recorded by the police and contains the basic knowledge of the crime committed, place of commission, time of commission, who was the victim, etc.

3.    The amount which Mr. Mark may claim will be equivalent to the cost of tools lost as well as the cost of torture caused. This means that legal representative needs to know what the actual cost will be which Mr. Mark may claim in his criminal complaint.