Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: July 27, 2022 at 20:09 IST
The Supreme Court observed that a trial court could not discharge the accused of murder based solely on a post-mortem report indicating “cardio respiratory failure” as the cause of death.
The bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, Abhay S Oka and JB Pardiwala observed that, “The post mortem report, by itself, does not constitute substantive evidence.” The only substantive evidence is the doctor’s statement in court.
The Trial Court discharged the accused of the charge of murder on the grounds that the cause of death listed in the post-mortem report—”cardio respiratory failure”—cannot be said in any way to be having nexus to the alleged assault that was levied against the deceased.
The Jammu and Kashmir High Court upheld this order and dismissed the revision plea filed by the original complainant. The trial court then proceeded on to charge the accused with culpable homicide, a crime punishable under Section 304 of the IPC.
The Bench made these observation that the answer to the question of whether the “cardio respiratory failure” had any nexus to the incident in question would need to be made based on the oral evidence of the eye witnesses and the concerned medical officer, or the expert witness who may be examined by the prosecution as one of its witnesses.
While allowing the appeal, the Bench further observed:
“Once the trial court decides to discharge an accused person from the offence punishable under Section 302 of the IPC and proceeds to frame the lesser charge for the offence punishable under Section 304 Part II of the IPC, the prosecution thereafter would not be in a position to lead any evidence beyond the charge as framed.”