J U D G M E N T

Leave granted.

2. The appellants before this Court are the two cousins of the deceased who was found dead in her rented accommodation in House No.424-B, Ground Floor, Chirag Delhi on 29.05.2013. The deceased was a 25 years old young girl who was a permanent resident of Manipur and at the relevant time was working in a call centre at Delhi. The post mortem was conducted next day on Signature3 Not0 Veri.fie0d 5.2013 which recorded following observations:

Digitally signed by Jayant Kumar Arora Date: 2024.03.23

11:09:22 IST Reason:

“a) Part of nose is missing over right side and piece of it is attached on the left side.

b) Nibbling marks present over both the upper eye lids c) wound size of 5 cm is present over dorsum of right foot; margins are irregular and show nibbling marks d) all wounds are post mortem in origin”

The cause of death could not be ascertained in the post mortem report.

3. Some puzzling facts of this case leading to this appeal are that the First Information Report (for short ‘FIR’) was only registered by the police on 31.05.2013, initially under Section 306 of Indian Penal Code (for short ‘IPC’), against unknown persons, when there was blood spattered all over the room and the face of the deceased was smashed, as we are given to understand. It was only later converted to a case under Section 302 of IPC. Initially, investigation was conducted by the Crime Branch and a second post mortem report was submitted again with no clear cause of death determined.

4. The body of the deceased was discovered on 29.05.2013 by the landlord of the tenanted premises who alerted PCR at 11am on the same day and this was recorded as DD No. 20A. The post- mortem of the deceased was conducted on 30.05.2013 by a Senior Resident of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) who recorded injuries on the body of deceased, while opinion about the cause of death was not given and the viscera analysis report and other reports from Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), were yet to come.

5. The FIR No. 253 of 2013 was registered on 31.05.2013 at Police Station, Malviya Nagar against unknown accused persons under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (hereafter “IPC”). The investigation was transferred to the Crime Branch, Malviya Nagar the next day, i.e., 01.06.2013 and pursuant to representations by the appellants, offence under Section 302 of IPC was added. On 04.06.2013 a second post-mortem was conducted by a Medical Board of three doctors from Maulana Azad Medical College & Lok Nayak Hospital, and noted eleven injuries on the person of deceased-victim, however, the opinion regarding the cause of death was not given due to the pendency of viscera chemical analysis and histopathology reports.

6. Meanwhile, the appellants herein had filed Writ Petition (Criminal) No. 1364 of 2013 before the Delhi High Court praying for direction for the investigation to be given to the Central Bureau of Investigation (for short ‘CBI’), who is also respondent No. 3 in the present matter. During the pendency of this Writ Petition, an order dated 11.04.2017 was passed recording the submission made by the counsel for Government of NCT that the final report which was submitted on 24.02.2015 under Section 173 of CrPC before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (South), has been agreed to be withdrawn and matter will be subjected to further investigation.

7. The High Court ultimately dismissed this Writ Petition for reasons which are four-fold. Firstly, it was noted that polygraph test had been conducted on the suspects Raj Kumar and Amit Sharma on 26.12.2013, however, no opinion could be formed about their involvement. Secondly, the DNA of the semen samples recovered from the undergarment of the deceased did not match with the DNA samples of the accused. Thirdly, the boyfriend of the deceased had not joined investigation, he was absconding and could not be traced. Fourthly, despite the post mortem conducted on the deceased, there was no concl