Supreme Court Sets Clear Boundaries on FIR Admissibility After Informant’s Death

Last Updated on February 11, 2025 by Amit Patra

In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court has reshaped the evidentiary landscape of criminal proceedings by declaring that First Information Reports (FIRs) filed by deceased informants can’t be admitted automatically as evidence unless certain conditions are satisfied. The judgment has come in an appeal involving a suicide case where the original complainant died of natural causes before the commencement of trial.

The bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan underscored that the contents of an FIR have to be corroborated and established when the informant is dead. More importantly, the Court drew a distinction between deaths related to the case and natural deaths, holding that if an informant’s death has no connection to the complaint, the contents of the FIR cannot be established by the testimony of the investigating officer alone. ***.

The reasoning of the Court was premised on the well-settled principle that although an FIR is the initial appearance of a crime, it is not substantive evidence in itself. The judgment explained that an FIR can be taken as a dying declaration under Section 32 of the Evidence Act only if the death of the informant is related to the case. The investigation officer’s scope in such a scenario remains restricted to the identification of the signatures and confirmation of some basic details regarding the registration of the FIR.

This is in line with legal sound principles that prevent hearsay from being admitted backdoor, although it still saves the value of the FIR, where the informant’s death may be related to the crime; the decision says, referring to Harkirat Singh v. State of Punjab, brings much-needed clarity on dealing with FIR evidence when informants are no longer available to testify.