Unsafe to hold death as homicidal sans postmortem: Punjab and Haryana HC

Tribune News Service

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, September 19

It is unsafe to hold a death to be homicidal merely on the strength of oral testimonies of the witnesses in the absence of a postmortem examination, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled. The assertion came as the Bench of Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice NS Shekhawat overturned a 13-year-old trial court decision convicting and sentencing a man to life imprisonment for his daughter’s murder.

What the Bench said

The Bench asserted that the Jalandhar Sessions Judge held the death to be homicidal on the basis of testimonies. However, the prosecution utterly failed in discharging the burden to prove the charge under Section 302 of the IPC

The Bench, during the course of the hearing, was told that the girl was murdered after she tried to intervene in a fight between her parents. Acquitting the accused of the charges under Sections 302 and 201 of the IPC, the Bench asserted that there were “many serious infirmities” in the prosecution’s case. Consequently, reliance could not be placed on the prosecution witnesses.

The Bench asserted that the Jalandhar Sessions Judge held the death to be homicidal on the basis of the testimonies. However, the prosecution utterly failed in discharging the burden to prove the charge under Section 302 of the IPC.

Elaborating, the Bench asserted that the prosecution witnesses in the case had ample opportunity to report the matter to the police. Admittedly, the place of occurrence was situated in a thickly populated area and the appellant was an ordinary labourer. However, no one chose to report the matter to the police. Even the appellant was not restrained from cremating the body till the arrival of the police. Rather, the body was cremated the next day around 8 am.

The Bench added some women belonging to the village noticed bruises and injuries and the matter was reported to the police two or three hours after the cremation. The postmortem was not conducted. “It is unsafe to hold only on the basis of oral testimonies of witnesses that the death was homicidal in the case,” the Bench asserted.

The Bench said bones and ashes were collected from the cremation ground and the parcel sent for chemical examination. But the prosecution did not tender the report.

“The appellant is ordered to be released forthwith if not required in any other case,” the Bench concluded.

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