- In the case of Kulwinder Singh vs State of Punjab the Punjab and Haryana HC has held that the chargesheet/final report would be complete upon the statement of the prosecutrix and the FSL report can only be used to corroborate their version.
- The instant revision petition had been filed under section 401 of CrPC against the order of the trial Court by which his application seeking default bail had been rejected. The case against the accused had been registered under section 376AB and 506 IPC and section 6, POCSO.
- The case of the prosecution was that the FIR had been lodged by the grandmother of the victim stating that her 6 year old granddaughter had gone to the house of Kulwinder Singh and when she went to bring her back, she heard screams and on seeing her, the accused ran away. She saw that the victim was bleeding from her private parts. Out of shame, the grandmother and her daughter in law did not tell anyone about this incident.
- The Counsel for the petitioner contended that the challan presented before the trial Court was defective as it was not accompanied by the FSL report. It was further argued that a defective challan cannot be taken to have been submitted in compliance with the statutory provisions enshrined in section 167(2) of CrPC.
- The State, however, argued that the chargesheet had been presented within the stipulated period and that the mere non-filing of the FSL report with the challan would not render it defective. Keeping in view the seriousness of the allegations, the State also contended that the petitioner should not be released on bail.
- Relying upon the decisions in the cases of State of Haryana vs Mehal Singh and ors AIR 1978 P&H and Rakesh @ Moni vs State of Haryana (2021) the Hon’ble HC observed that for an offence of sexual assault, the final report would be complete on the statement of the prosecutrix under sections 161 and 164 of CrPC, and the FSL report would only be used to corroborate the version of the prosecution.
- The Court further observed that the Court can take cognizance of the offence on the basis of the challan that was filed by the Investigating Agency. Thus, in view of the aforementioned discussion, the non-filing of the FSL report along with the challan does not render it incomplete.
- Thus, finding no illegality in the order of the Trial Court, the instant revision petition was dismissed.
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