7-yr absence: SC says date of disappearance can't be date of death

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has held that a person who has gone missing cannot be presumed to be dead on the date of disappearance, and that the presumption of death arises only after the expiry of seven years .

- Utkarsh Anand

The statutory presumption, the court said, may be rebutted only by producing concrete evidence to prove an earlier date of death.

A bench of justices Pankaj Mithal and PB Varale emphasised that Section 108 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 (which allows presumption of death if a person has not been heard of for seven years) merely permits the inference of death after this period, but does not fix the date of death as the date of disappearance. The provision has been retained as Section 108 in the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023.

The date of death remains uncertain unless proved through direct or circumstantial evidence, noted the bench while adding: “The decree declaring civil death recognises only that the person is presumed dead after seven years of disappearance, without fixing any precise date.”