The Supreme Court has held that interpolations and “ante-timing” of a First Information Report (FIR) gives benefit of doubt in favour of the accused and will lead to acquittal.
A Bench of Justices V. Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal observed in a recent judgment that changing the time of commission of a crime to give an impression that it happened earlier than it actually did was fatal to the evidentiary value of an FIR.
“Infirmities such as ante-timing of the FIR loses its evidentiary value… entitles the accused to be given the benefit of doubt… It is worth mentioning that an FIR in a criminal case, and particularly in a murder case, is a vital and a valuable piece of evidence especially for the purpose of appreciating the evidence adduced at the trial. It is for this reason that infirmities, if any, in the FIR cast a doubt on its authenticity,” the court held.
The court laid down the law while acquitting a man and his father sentenced to life imprisonment in a 27-year-old murder case from Mangaluru.
The court found that the time of commission of the alleged crime was changed in the FIR from 1.50 p.m. to 9 a.m. by overwriting.
“There is interpolation in the FIR and that it has been ante-timed. Actually, the complaint / FIR was lodged at 1.50 p.m. on 04.08.1995 and by overwriting, it has been changed to 9 a.m.,” the judgment written by Justice Mithal noted.
The court reproduced the appellants’ statements that they were not involved in the crime. They had claimed that they had been “unnecessarily framed as they are new to the village”.
Justice Mithal said the prosecution case against the father-son duo suffered from other handicaps, including an inexplicable delay in sending the FIR to the local court and the lack of credible eyewitnesses.
