Postmortem report can’t be sole basis for conviction: SC

AmitAnand.Choudhary@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:15.09.2021

Holding that a person cannot be convicted merely on the basis of postmortem report, the Supreme Court on Tuesday acquitted a man who was sentenced to life imprisonment for unnatural death of his wife and quashed trial court and Patna high court order convicting him on the basis of medical report which said that she died of throttling.

A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Abhay S Oka said the guilt of the accused has not been established beyond a reasonable doubt and the circumstances established by the prosecution do not lead to only one possible inference regarding the guilt of the accused. The court also noted that there was no eyewitnesses in the case and the relationship between the husband and wife was not strained to indicate any foul play on his behalf.

In this case, the husband contended that she died of burn injuries as she caught fire while cooking and family members tried their best to douse the fire. The prosecution, however, rubbished his claim as the autopsy report said the death was due to asphyxia. Going by the findings of a post-mortem report, the trial court and the HC convicted him and awarded life imprisonment. Examining statements of all witnesses and evidence, the apex court said the guilt of the accused was not proved beyond doubt and acquitted him. “In this case, neither the prosecution witnesses have deposed to that effect nor any other material has been placed on record to show that the relationship between the appellant and the deceased was strained in any manner. Moreover, the appellant was not the only person residing in the house where the incident took place and it is brought on record that the parents of the appellant were also present on the date of the incident in the house. Therefore, it can be said that the facts established do not rule out the existence of any other hypothesis,” said Justice Oka who penned the verdict.