Inquest report not substantive evidence; differences between inquest and post mortem reports not fatal: Supreme Court

Inquest report in a criminal case is not substantive evidence since its purpose is only to find out the apparent cause of death of a person who has died under suspicious circumstances, the Supreme Court held on Monday [Pappu Tiwari v. State of Jharkhand]..Hence, differences between inquest report and post mortem report, even if such differences are major, will not be fatal to the prosecution case, a Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and MM Sundresh ruled.The Court was hearing a case of murder in which the accused one Pappu Tiwari was alleged to have fired at the deceased Vikas Kumar Singh who fell on the road due to the same. The other accused then allegedly inflicted injuries on Singh using knives and he passed away.The accused were charged for murder..The inquest report had failed to identify fire arm injury. The post-mortem conducted by the doctor, however, said that the cause of death was due to shock and hemorrhage caused by vital and multiple injuries. Injuries one and two were identified as firm arm injuries.Accused Pappu Tiwari took the contention that there were major discrepancies between the inquest report and the post-mortem report.This aspect was sought to be linked to the plea of first information report being ante timed. There were stated to be differences in the version which would indicate that the fardbeyan was lodged only after the post-mortem report.The factual basis for the same, the accused claimed was that in the inquest report six injuries are mentioned with no mention of gunshot injury while the post-mortem report showed that there were 26 injuries including the gunshot injury.On the other hand, the counsel for the State submitted that the inquest report cannot be treated as substantive evidence but may be utilised for contradicting the witness of inquest. He submitted that the inquest report is not really evidence by itself and cannot be pitted against the evidence of the medical witness in court..The Supreme Court accepted this argument.The Court conceded that there were major differences between what the inquest report and post mortem report said in the instant case.“However, this will not be fatal in our view. We say so keeping in mind the purpose of an inquest report, which is not substantive evidence. The objective is to find out whether a person who has died under suspicious circumstances, what may be the apparent cause of his death,” the Court held.The Court said that it had no doubt that it was a case of homicide.“The expert is the doctor who carries out the post-mortem and has been medico legal expert. The two fire arm injuries have been clearly identified with the wounds at the entry and at the exit being identified,” the judgment said.Hence, the Court dismissed the appeal..[Read Judgment]