Mere Delay In Forwarding FIR To Jurisdictional Magistrate Not Sufficient To Discard Prosecution Case: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court reiterated that mere delay in forwarding an FIR (First Information Report) to the jurisdictional Magistrate is not sufficient to discard and disbelieve the case of prosecution.

The Court was deciding two sets of appeals, one by the State of Bihar through CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) and the other by the wife of the deceased MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) - Brij Bihari Prasad.

The three-Judge Bench comprising Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice Sanjay Kumar, and Justice R. Mahadevan observed, “This Court, in State of Rajasthan v. Daud Khan, has examined the case law on the subject and held that when there is a delay in forwarding the FIR to the jurisdictional magistrate and the accused raises a specific contention regarding the same, they must demonstrate how this delay has prejudiced their case. Mere delay by itself is not sufficient to discard and disbelieve the case of the prosecution. If the investigation starts in right earnest and there is sufficient material on record to show that the accused were named and pinpointed, the prosecution case can be accepted when evidence implicates the accused.”

The Bench added that the requirement to dispatch and serve a copy of the FIR to the jurisdictional magistrate is an external check against ante dating or ante timing of the FIR to ensure that there is no manipulation or interpolation in the FIR and if the Court finds the witnesses to be truthful and credible, the lack of a cogent explanation for the delay may not be regarded as detrimental.

Senior Advocate Siddharth Aggarwal and AOR Arvind Kumar Sharma represented the appellant while Senior Advocates Sonia Mathur, Ruchi Kohli, and Archana Pathak Dave represented the respondents.

Brief Facts -

As per the prosecution case, in 1998, the deceased MLA (Brij Bihari Prasad) who was in judicial custody and admitted for treatment in a hospital was taking a walk outside the wardroom along with others. He was also accompanied by his bodyguard – Lakshmeshwar Sahu, who was armed with a carbine, and other sepoys. It was alleged that two vehicles entered the hospital and stopped near the deceased. The occupants of the said cars came out and one of them was armed with a sten gun. All others were armed with pistols. One of them abusively exhorted others to shoot at the deceased while he himself also fired at him with his pistol.

The accused persons also fired at his bodyguard and resultantly, both MLA and bodyguard collapsed and died. Hence, the case was registered against the accused persons. Primarily relying on the testimonies of the witnesses, the Trial Court convicted all the accused persons who were nine in number. However, the High Court reversed the judgment of the Trial Court and acquitted all of them of the charges under Sections 302, 307, 333, 355, and 379, all read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), and Section 27 of the Arms Act, 1959. Challenging their acquittal, the State and the deceased’s wife approached the Apex Court.

The Supreme Court in view of the facts and circumstances of the case, said, “The occurrence having taken place at night on 13.06.1998, normally the FIR should have been sent to the jurisdictional magistrate on 14.06.1998. However, 14.06.1998 being a Sunday was a holiday. The FIR was forwarded to the jurisdictional magistrate on 15.06.1998. There is, therefore, an explanation for the delay in forwarding a copy of the FIR to the jurisdictional magistrate in terms of Section 157 of the CrPC. It is trite law that a delay in forwarding the FIR to the jurisdictional magistrate is not fatal to the prosecution case.”

The Court further noted that the statements under Section 161 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) are per se not evidence in the Court and the appellant’s (deceased’s wife) statement under Section 161 CrPC was recorded and filed along with the chargesheet and that she was not cross-examined regarding the said statement.

“Considering the efflux of time of more than 4-6 years between the date of occurrence and recording of court testimony, these issues are at best superficial and peripheral and would not warrant disregarding the prosecution case. The questions posed to the witnesses were more in the nature of a memory test rather than questions posed to test the truthfulness and credibility of their core testimony. Equally, the observation of the High Court on the statement under Section 161 CrPC of Rama Devi (PW-24) to Rai Singh Khatri (PW-62), IO of the CBI, is inconsequential. Section 161 CrPC statement of Rama Devi, in which she had given the names and details of the persons who were present in the hospital, cannot be brushed aside solely on this ground”, it remarked.

The Court said that, it will not interfere with the judgment of the High Court acquitting the accused persons since the charge of conspiracy is not substantiated, and hence, they are entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

Accordingly, the Apex Court partially allowed the appeals, set aside the impugned judgment, upheld the conviction of some of the accused, and restored that of the other ones.

Cause Title- Rama Devi v. The State of Bihar and Others (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 755)

Appearance:

Appellant: Senior Advocate Siddharth Aggarwal, AORs Arvind Kumar Sharma, Priya Puri, Advocates Aditya Singia, Vishwajeet Bhati, Harsh Yadav, Ritwik Saha, Sharad Kumar Puri, Parul Sharma, and Pinki Aggarwal.

Respondents: Senior Advocates Sonia Mathur, Ruchi Kohli, Archana Pathak Dave, AORs Mukesh Kumar Maroria, Sairica S Raju, Abhishek Priyadarshi, Sunil Kumar, Aseem Atwal, Raj Kumar, Manu Shanker Mishra, Tripurari Ray, Advocates Rajesh Kumar Singh, Rajan Kumar Chourasia, P V Yogeswaran, Ronika Tater, Surbhi Bhardwaj, Dipanshu Krishnan, Madhumita Kesavan, Nikhil Chandra Jaiswal, Tripurari Ray, D. S. Parmar, Sujeeta Srivastava, Mrinal Elker Mazumdar, Saurabh Singh, Anirudh Ray, Ashutosh Ghade, Nimit Bhimjiyani, Rahul Raman, Sneha Balapure, Raj Kamal, Kartavya Batra, Anurag Chandra, Nupur Kaushik, Stuti, Aprajita Tyagi, Muskan Sidana, Harneet Singh, Prerna Singh, Shantanu Sagar, Prabhat Ranjan Raj, Anil Kumar, Gunjesh Ranjan, Divya Mishra, Shashank Kumar Saurav, Sanjay Jain, Laxmi Narayan Sharma, Vivekanand Singh, Nishant Kumar, Nithyananda Murthy P, Bhanu Prabha, and Vaibha Kumar.

Click here to read/download the Judgment