The Supreme Court in a recent decision has held that in cases of unnatural death due to suspected poisoning, the police and the courts in the country will be required to send viscera for forensic examination following the post-mortem.
The decision assumes significance as it comes in the backdrop of the recent mysterious unnatural death of Sunanda Pushkar, wife of Union Minister Shashi Tharoor, who too has been suspected of have died due to drug poisoning.
While dealing with a case of a woman's untimely death in Bihar in 1989, the bench of Justices Ranjana P Rakash Desai and J Chelameswar said, "Having noticed that, in several cases where poisoning is suspected, the prosecuting agencies are not taking steps to obtain viscera report, we feel it necessary to issue certain directions in that behalf."
It directed that in cases where poisoning is suspected, immediately after the post-mortem, the viscera should be sent to the FSl. "The prosecuting agencies should ensure that the viscera is, in fact, sent to the FSl for examination and the FSl should ensure that the viscera is examined immediately and report is sent to the investigating agencies/courts post haste," the bench said.
In the event, the viscera report is not received, the bench felt that the concerned court will have to seek explanation and summon the concerned officer of the FSl to suggest as to why the viscera report was not forwarded to the investigating agency or court. By stating so, the Court has ensured that a vital piece of evidence is not lost in order to convict persons accused.
In the present case, the viscera report was never prepared as a result of which there was no evidence to nail the accused. "We wonder whether these lapses are the result of inadvertence or they are a calculated move to frustrate the prosecution," said the Court, frustrated over the manner in which the investigation failed to prove poisoning, despite the allegation leveled by some witnesses, who later turned hostile.
"Not in all cases there is adequate strong other evidence on record to prove that the deceased was administered poison by the accused, these scientific tests are of vital importance to a criminal case, particularly when the witnesses are increasingly showing a tendency to turn hostile," it added.