Legal provisions regarding police to inquire and report on suicide, unnatural deaths, etc under section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
(1) When the officer in charge of a police station or some other police officer specially empowered by the State Government in that behalf, receives information that a person has committed suicide, or has been killed by another or by an animal, or by machinery, or by an accident, or has died under circumstances raising a reasonable suspicion that some other person has committed an offence, he shall immediately give intimation thereof to the nearest Executive Magistrate empowered to hold inquests, and, unless otherwise directed by any rule prescribed by the State Government, or by any general or special order of the District or Sub-Divisional Magistrate, shall proceed to the place where the body of such deceased person is, and there, in the presence of two or more respectable inhabitants of the neighbourhood, shall make an investigation, and draw up a report of the apparent cause of death, describing such wounds, fractures, bruises and other marks of injury as may be found on the body, and stating in what manner, or by what weapon or instrument, if any, such marks appear to have been inflicted.
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(2) The report shall be signed by such police officer and other persons or by so many of them as concur therein, and shall be forthwith forwarded to the District Magistrate or Sub-Divisional Magistrate.
(3) The police officer shall, subject to such rules as the State Government may prescribe in this behalf, forward the body, with a view to its being examined, to the nearest Civil Surgeon, or other qualified medical man appointed in this behalf by the State Government, if the state of the weather and the distance admit of its being so forwarded without risk of such putrefaction on the road as would render such examination useless when:—
(i) The case involves suicide by a woman within seven years of her marriage; or
(ii) The case relates to the death of a woman within seven years of her marriage in any circumstances raising a reasonable suspicion that some other person committed an offence in relation to such woman; or
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(iii) The case relates to the death of a woman within seven years of her marriage and any relative of the woman has made a request in this behalf; or
(iv) There is any doubt regarding the case of death; or
(v) The police officer for any other reason considers it expedient so to do.
The object of the inquest proceedings is merely to ascertain whether a person had died under the circumstances which were doubtful or an unnatural death and if so what is the cause of death.
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The questions regarding details such as how the deceased was assaulted or who assaulted him or under what circumstances he was assaulted, etc. are beyond the scope of the inquest proceedings.
The names of the assailants and the manner of assault are not required to be mentioned in the inquest report. The statement of the Investigating Officer in the inquest report is not a statement made by any witness before the police during the investigation, but it is a record of what the Investigating Officer himself observed and found such an evidence is the direct or the primary evidence in the case and is in the eye of law the best evidence.
The statement in inquest report does not fall within the four corners of Section 162 of the Code. Inquest report and post-mortem report cannot be termed to be basic or substantive evidence. However, unless the record is proved to be suspect and unreliable, perfunctory or dishonest, there is no reason to disbelieve such a statement in the inquest report.
Investigation of the inquest is not limited to the examination of eyewitnesses only. All witnesses need not be examined in an inquest because it is concerned with establishing the cause of death and only such evidence necessary to establish it, need be brought out.
The inquest report is not substantive evidence, but it may be used in corroboration of evidence.
It was held by the Supreme Court that the object of inquest report under Section 174 of Cr. P.C. is only to notice as to whether murder committed was homicidal in nature or not. The object is not for making a note in regard to identification marks of the accused.