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Rajeev Kourav v. Baisahab and Ors.

Criminal Appeal · 2020 INSC 168Decided 11 Feb 2020
Criminal Appeal No. 232 of 2020
Justice L. Nageswara Rao · Justice Deepak Gupta

Background

The appellant's wife and her two young children died by suicide, jumping in front of a train, after alleged sustained harassment by the appellant's sister-in-law and her brothers over a family land dispute. An FIR was registered for abetment of suicide, but the Madhya Pradesh High Court quashed the criminal proceedings against the accused relatives, relying on police statements that it felt did not disclose incitement to suicide. The husband, as the original complainant, appealed to the Supreme Court against the quashing.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court erred by effectively weighing and assessing witness statements recorded under Section 161 Cr.P.C., which are not admissible evidence, to conclude that no offence was made out, when the law requires the High Court, at the quashing stage, only to see whether the FIR and chargesheet disclose a prima facie case. It noted that one witness statement did in fact describe the deceased informing him she could not bear the harassment and was contemplating suicide, which the High Court had itself acknowledged yet still wrongly discounted. The Supreme Court therefore set aside the High Court's quashing order and restored the criminal proceedings, while expressly not commenting on the ultimate merits or guilt, leaving that to trial.

Lesson Learnt

A High Court cannot quash a criminal case at a preliminary stage by picking apart and weighing witness statements as if conducting a mini-trial; if the FIR and evidence disclose even a prima facie case, the accused must face a full trial where such questions are properly tested.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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