Contents Of FIR Inadmissible, Cannot Be Proved Through Scribe If Informant Dies Natural Death Before Testifying: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court has held that if a first informant dies a natural death before the commencement of a criminal trial or before testifying, the contents of the FIR cannot be proved through a scribe or an investigating officer. A Bench of Justice J.J. Munir and Justice Saurabh Srivastava clarified that if an informant's death has no connection whatsoever with the complaint lodged, the contents of the FIR will not be admissible in evidence, and the benefit of Section 32 of the Indian Evidence Act cannot be availed in such cases. It may be noted that Section 32 provides an exception to the general rule against hearsay, allowing statements of deceased persons to be admitted in court. However, for such a statement to be legally admissible as substantive evidence, it must directly relate to the cause of the person's death or the circumstances that resulted in their demise. The bench was essentially dealing with a criminal appeal filed by Khalid and Nannu (who died while the appeal was pending). The appellants had challenged a January 2005 verdict of the Fast Track Court, Ghaziabad, convicting both of them for committing the murder of one Sarafraz alias Pappu. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment. The first informant in the case, Wahiuddin (the father of the deceased), had passed away due to natural causes before the case went to trial. Since an examination of the FIR was not possible, the prosecution examined the scribe of the FIR (PW-1) to prove its contents. However, while hearing the appeals, the High Court discarded this approach as it observed thus: "Considering the fact that Wahiuddin was dead by time the case went to trial and the FIR does not relate to the cause of his death or as to any circumstances of the transaction which resulted in his death, to borrow the phraseology of Section 32(1), the contents of the FIR cannot be held proved by the scribe". The bench clarified that the scribe could only testify to the mechanical process of writing the document, not the contents of the contained within it. "The evidence of PW-1, the scribe of the FIR, would, therefore, be limited to proving the facts that the FIR was dictated by word of mouth by the informant to PW-1, who has transcribed it and that it bears signatures of the first informant and the scribe as well...but does not prove the contents of the FIR," the Court held. In this regard, the High Court relied heavily on a Division Bench precedent in Pradeep v. State of U.P. (2022) and the Supreme Court's recent judgment in Lalita v. Vishwanath and others 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 179.The bench noted the Supreme Court's stance that unless an FIR has a nexus with the informant's death, the deposition of the FIR contents by the IO or scribe would not render the same admissible as substantive evidence. In this case, the Supreme Court held that if an informant's death has no connection whatsoever with a complaint lodged, then the FIR's contents will not be admissible in evidence. In other words, it was held that unless an FIR is treated as a dying declaration, the deposition of the FIR contents by the IO would not render the same admissible. Against this backdrop, the High Court specifically clarified that the mere non-proof of the FIR does not impair the prosecution from proving their case otherwise by producing evidence in the dock. The bench, however, added that in such cases, the prosecution would have one disadvantage: the earliest account of the occurrence is not available, since the FIR, if duly proved in accordance with law, is a “treasured and reliable repository unless impeached by very cogent evidence about its veracity”. Furthermore, on the merits of the case, the High Court found that the prosecution's case was "highly improbable". According to the prosecution's case, on January 7, 1990, a dispute erupted over the borrowing of a tractor-trolley, and the accused-Khalid, ordered his servant (Nannu) to catch hold of Sarafraz from behind. As Khalid opened fire with a double-barreled shotgun, the informant suddenly caught hold of the weapon, which caused the deflected lead to hit Nannu's lower limbs. Immediately after, Khalid drew a pistol from his waist and shot Sarafraz in the head, killing him. The accused had submitted a cross-version, claiming that Sarafraz was accidentally killed by a bullet fired by his own family members during a physical scuffle when they attacked Khalid. Referring to the prosecution's manner of assault, the Bench termed it "almost unbelievable" that an assailant (Khalid) would ask his own servant to hold a victim in the direct line of a frontal firearm assault. The Court further pointed out the physical impossibility of the gunshot injuries. Since a double-barrel shotgun blast produces a wide spread of pellets, the Court noted that it was “almost fantastic to think that the lead would have flown around Khalid's...

Contents Of FIR Inadmissible, Cannot Be Proved Through Scribe If Informant Dies Natural Death Before Testifying: Allahabad High Court

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Contents Of FIR Inadmissible, Cannot Be Proved Through Scribe If Informant Dies Natural Death Before Testifying: Allahabad High Court

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