Whether Medical witness who performs post-mortem is witness of fact?

 On perusal of the record, it has further been noticed by us that there was six days' delay in lodging the FIR which remained unexplained throughout the trial and in the appeal before the High Court. One last fact which is imperative and crucial to be mentioned here is that opinion on the cause of injuries was neither mentioned by doctor PW-6 in his deposition, nor in post-mortem report. In criminal cases pertaining to offences against human body, medical evidence has decisive role to play. A medical witness who performs a post-mortem examination is a witness of fact though he also gives an opinion on certain aspects of the case. This proposition of law has been stated by this Court in Smt. Nagindra Bala Mitraand v. Sunil Chandra Roy, 1960 SCR (3) 1, as follows:

“The value of a medical witness is not merely a check upon the testimony of eye witnesses; it is also independent testimony because it may establish certain facts quite apart from the other oral evidence. If a person is shot at a close range, the mark of tattooing found by the medical witness would draw that the range was small, quite apart from any other opinion of his. Similarly, fractures of bones, depth and size of the wounds would show the nature of the weapon used. It is wrong to say that it is only opinion evidence; it is often direct evidence of the facts found upon the victim's person.”

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

(Before Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Rohinton Fali Nariman, JJ.)

Machindra v.

Sajjan Galpha Rankhamb & Ors

Criminal Appeal No. 1794 of 2013

Decided on April 19, 2017

Citation:2017 SCC ONLINE 443

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DELHI HC ASKS HOSPITALS TO KEEP DIGITAL RECORD OF POST-MORTEM REPORTS

The Delhi High Court today asked hospitals here to keep digital records of post-mortem reports as backup in case certificates issued to victim's families get "mutilated". 

A bench of justices B D Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva also asked the authorities concerned to keep the digital records of the photos taken at the time of conducting post-mortem. 

"We indicate that post-mortem reports should be kept in digital form. This is necessary as in many cases the parts of the reports given to the victim's family and to the police get mutilated, which affects investigation in the cases," it said. 

The bench further said this should be considered and necessary action be taken by the authorities concerned. 

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