Contents Of FIR Inadmissible & Cannot Be Proved Through Investigating Officer If Informant Died A Natural Death : Supreme Court

The Court explained that the officer can only identify his and the informant's signature on the FIR. Apart from this, he can also depose about the factum of the FIR being registered by him on a particular date and a police station.

“Another important thing is that for an F.I.R. lodged by a deceased person to be treated as substantial, its contents must be proved. It has to be corroborated and proved for there to be any value of the same in the case. The F.I.R. can be used by the defence to impeach the credit of the person who lodged the F.I.R. under Section 154(3) of the Evidence Act. In case the death of the informant has no nexus with the complaint lodged i.e. he died a natural death and did not succumb to the injuries inflicted on him in relation to a matter, the contents of the F.I.R. would not be admissible in evidence. In such circumstances, the contents cannot be proved through the Investigating Officer.”

The Bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan were hearing the present appeal against the acquittal of the accused charged under criminal offences of cruelty and abetment of suicide. As per the appellant's case, her deceased daughter was married to the respondent. She died by suicide after facing harassment by her husband, father-in-law, mother-in-law and first wife of the husband.

The Trial Court convicted all the accused persons for the aforesaid charges. Pertinently, the deceased's father had lodged the complaint; however, he passed away before the trial commenced. Notwithstanding, the Trial Court permitted the investigating officer to prove the contents of the FIR. However, this finding was reversed by the High Court after re-evaluating the evidence.

As the matter reached before the Supreme Court, it ruled out the possibility of abetment of suicide. The Court said that there was not sufficient evidence and further, it cannot be concluded that the deceased was left with no alternative but to commit suicide.

Taking a cue from this, the Court addressed the aspect of proving the contents of the FIR through an officer. It highlighted that FIR is not by itself a substantial piece of evidence. Further, it cannot be considered as evidence unless it falls within Section 32 of the Evidence Act, which among other things, talks about dying declaration.

The relative importance of a First Information Report is far greater than any other statement recorded by the police during the course of the investigation. It is the foremost information the police gets about the commission of an offence and which can be used to corroborate the story put-forward by the first informant under Section 157 of the Evidence Act or to contradict his version by facts under Section 145 of the Evidence Act in case he is summoned as a witness in the case by the Court.,” the Court said.

It went on to observe that if the informant dies, the FIR shall be used as substantive evidence. However, the informant's death must have some nexus with the lodged FIR. There are a plethora of decisions taking the view that an FIR can be a dying declaration if the informant dies of his injuries after lodging the same., the Court said.

In view of this, the Court held that the Trial and High Court were “absolutely incorrect” in allowing the police officer to prove the FIR contents. To bolster, the Court cited certain decisions including Harkirat Singh v. State of Punjab [(1997) 11 SCC 215 : AIR 1997 SC 3231.

Thus, after making these aforementioned findings, the Court dismissed the present appeal.

Appearances:

Appellant: Mr. Amol V. Deshmukh, Adv. Mr. Dilip Annasaheb Taur, AOR

Respondent: Mr. Uday B. Dube, AOR

Case Name: LALITA VERSUS VISHWANATH & ORS., Criminal Appeal No.1086 of 2017

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 179

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