HC: File unnatural death reports before judicial magistrates

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has ruled that police investigating unnatural or accidental deaths must submit their final reports before the jurisdictional Judicial Magistrate of the First Class rather than an Executive Magistrate.

According to LiveLaw, Justice Suddala Chalapathi Rao issued the ruling while hearing a petition filed by a woman whose husband allegedly died after falling into a ditch excavated for a water pipeline project.

While declining to order a fresh investigation into the 2014 incident, the court said that the procedure governing the filing of final reports must be followed in such cases. It held that investigations into unnatural deaths should culminate in a report being placed before the appropriate judicial magistrate for consideration.

It said that henceforth, the procedure under Section 173(2) (submitting final report after an investigation) CrPC, now Section 193(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, must be followed even for investigations conducted under Section 174 (unnatural death) CrPC, now Section 194 BNSS.

The court also directed its registry to forward a copy of the order to the Director General of Police (DGP) for circulation to police stations across the state to ensure compliance with the ruling.

What was the case

R. Jaya Laxmi approached the High Court challenging the closure of an FIR registered over the May 2014 death of her husband, R. Laxman. She sought a reinvestigation and action against the contractor who dug the ditch and the authority overseeing the pipeline project.

According to her petition, Laxman, 55, a BSNL telephone mechanic, was on his way to a medical shop near Yapral bus stop on the night of May 18, 2014, when he fell into a water pipeline trench on the main road. He suffered severe head injuries and died.

Following her complaint, Alwal Police registered a case under Section 174 CrPC after she alleged that the contractor had left the pipeline trench without adequate safety measures.

She accused the contractor of negligence and the supervising authority of failing to ensure public safety. However, she alleged that police closed the case without a proper investigation and submitted the final report to the Mandal Tahsildar-cum-Mandal Executive Magistrate.

State’s stand

The State opposed the petition, maintaining that the investigation found no foul play. Police said they had examined witnesses, including the petitioner and her children, conducted an autopsy and obtained permission from the Assistant Commissioner of Police before filing the final report. As no cognisable offence was found, the State argued that closing the case was justified.

The High Court observed that an inquiry under Section 174 CrPC has a limited scope — primarily to determine the apparent cause of death and whether it was accidental, suicidal, homicidal or otherwise unnatural.

The court found that although police had investigated Laxman’s death, they had wrongly submitted the final report to an Executive Magistrate. Under Section 173(2) CrPC, such reports must be forwarded to a magistrate empowered to take cognisance of an offence.

It also noted that police must inform the person who initially reported the alleged offence about the action taken. Submitting the closure report to an Executive Magistrate without notifying the affected party violated their statutory rights.

However, given that more than a decade had passed since the 2014 incident, the court declined to order a reinvestigation and closed the petition.