Delay in lodging the first information report quite often results in embellishment which is a creature of afterthought: Supreme Court

In Thulia Kali vs. The State of Tamil Nadu (1973) AIR 501, Supreme Court's Division Bench of Justices Hans Raj Khanna and G.K Mitter observed: "First information report in a criminal case is an extremely vital and valuable piece of evidence for the purpose of corroborating the oral evidence adduced at the trial. The importance of the above report can hardly be overestimated from the standpoint of the accused: The object of insisting upon prompt lodging of the report to the police in respect of commission of an offence is to obtain early information regarding the circumstances in which the crime was committed, the names of the actual culprits and the part played by them as well as names of eye witnesses present at the scene of occurrence. Delay in lodging the first information report quite often results in embellishment which is a creature of afterthought. On account of delay, the report not only gets bereft of the advantage of spontaneity, danger creeps in of the introduction of coloured version, exaggerated account or concocted story. As a result of deliberation and consultation. It is, therefore, essential that the delay in the lodging of the first information report should be satisfactorily explained." The judgement was delivered on February 25, 1972. It was authored by Justice Hans Raj Khanna. 

The appellant was sentenced to death under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).  According to the prosecution case, the Trial Court and the High Court had based the conviction of the appellant primarily upon the testimony of two witnesses one of whom was present when the accused made murderous assault on the deceased and the other arrived soon after.  But neither of them nor anyone else who was told about the occurrence by the two witnesses made any report at the police station for more than 20 hours after the occurrence even though the police station was only two miles from the place of occurrence. 

The case of the prosecution was that it was the accused-appellant who had caused the injuries to Madhandi, the deceased. The accused denied this allegation and claimed that he has been falsely involved in this case on suspicion.

The trial court and the High Court had based the conviction of the accused-appellant primarily upon the testimony of Kopia (PW 2) and Valanjiaraju (PW 1). 

Supreme Court does not normally reappraise evidence in an appeal under Article 136 of the Constitution, but that fact would not prevent interference with an order of conviction if on consideration of the vital prosecution evidence in the case, this Court finds it to be afflicted with ex facie infirmity. There are in the present case certain broad features of the prosecution story which create considerable doubt regarding the veracity of the aforesaid evidence, and. in Court's opinion, it was not safe to maintain the conviction on the basis of that evidence.

The Division Bench of the Supreme Court set aside the conviction. It held that hat the delay in lodging the report would raise considerable doubt regarding the veracity of the evidence of two witnesses and point to an infirmity in that evidence and would render it unsafe to base the conviction of the appellant.