The Allahabad High Court has made it clear: an FIR does not lose its spine simply because a lawyer helped draft it.
Hearing a criminal appeal in Jagdamba Harijan v State of UP, a Division Bench of Justice Rajesh Singh Chauhan and Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary was confronted with a familiar line of defence — that the First Information Report was unreliable because it had been lodged with the assistance of a private advocate.
The Court was unmoved.
Legal assistance, it noted, is not a contaminant. If the criminal justice system permits legal aid at every stage — from arrest to appeal — there is no logic in erecting a barrier at the very first step: the filing of an FIR. The mere involvement of a lawyer, the Bench observed, does not dilute credibility. At most, it calls for careful scrutiny to rule out malice or fabrication. Suspicion cannot spring solely from the profession of the scribe.
Acid Attack, Two Deaths
The case stemmed from a brutal acid attack that claimed the lives of two women — a mother and her daughter-in-law. In 2018, the trial court convicted Jagdamba Harijan under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code and other provisions, sentencing him to life imprisonment.
On appeal, the defence attacked the prosecution’s foundation. It argued that the complainant had neither witnessed the acid being thrown nor been present at the scene. The FIR, they stressed, had been written by a private advocate. There was also a delay in its registration.
The Bench sifted through the record and found the core of the prosecution case intact.
Medical evidence established that both victims succumbed to septicaemia triggered by deep acid burns. The suggestion that improper medical care, rather than the assault, caused their deaths was firmly rejected. The chain of causation, the Court held, remained unbroken.
Delay and Literacy
As for the delay in lodging the FIR, the judges treated it with practical realism. When victims are battling catastrophic injuries, rushing them to medical care is instinctive and necessary. A brief delay in approaching the police, the Court reasoned, cannot by itself dismantle the prosecution’s story.
The complainant’s literacy also entered the discussion. The Bench noted that he was illiterate and needed assistance to put his account on paper. That the assisting hand belonged to an advocate did not render the narrative suspect. What mattered was whether the account disclosed a cognizable offence and whether it withstood scrutiny.
On that score, the Court found consistency. The complainant’s event-by-event description of the attack survived extensive cross-examination without material contradictions. His presence at the scene, the Bench observed, appeared plausible.
Motive and Evidence
The Court also noted evidence suggesting the accused harboured an interest in the complainant’s sister-in-law, providing a motive. Alleged discrepancies in witness statements were examined but deemed insufficient to fracture the prosecution’s case.
Ultimately, the Bench concluded that the charges under Sections 304, 326A and 451 of the IPC had been proved beyond reasonable doubt. The conviction was affirmed.
Sentence Trimmed
There was, however, a measured concession. Instead of life imprisonment, the Court modified the sentence to a fixed term of 14 years’ rigorous imprisonment. By November 2025, the appellant had already spent over 13 years and nine months in custody, including remission.
The ruling underscores a simple but significant principle: the credibility of an accusation lies in its substance, not in who helped draft it.
