New Delhi: Identification of the defendant in court by a witness who had seen it for the first time during a crime was a weak evidence, especially when there was a broad gap between the date of incident and the recording of his proof, the Supreme Court said.
Observations came to the appeal submitted by four people punished under Section 55 (a) from the actions of Kerala Abkari to transport the Spirit.
The accusation of prosecution was that four people transported a total quantity of 6,090 liters of spirits in 174 plastic cans in trucks with false registration number plates and without authorization.
The APEX court disposed of witness testimony as he said that he could not identify everyone he had seen 11 years ago.
However, he had identified both accused even though he had seen them for the first time more than 11 years ago on the date of the incident.
“Identification by witnesses accused of in court who had for the first time seeing the defendant in a violation incident was weak evidence especially when there was a large time gap between the date of the incident and the date of the proof recording,” Judge Judge Rastogi and Abhay S Oka.
The Apex Court said in such cases, test identification tests (the process to identify accused) can make identification accused by witnesses before the court can be trusted.
The upper court in the order of October 22 said it was well resolved that the test identification parade was part of an investigation and not substantive evidence.
However, the absence of a test identification parade may not be enough facto to get rid of witness testimonies that have identified the defendant in court, Bench said.
In certain cases, it might have something to do with testimony, he said.
“In some cases, the court can be impressed with the testimony of witnesses of sterling quality prosecution.
In such cases, the witness testimony is trustworthy.
In this case, PW13 (witness) accepted that he was unable to identify everyone he had witnessed 11 years Then.
“However, he insisted that he could identify the accused NOS.
2 and 4 even though he had seen them for the first time more than 11 years ago on the date of the incident.
Therefore, in the fact of the case, the PW13 proof is related to the identification of the accused NOS.
2 and 4 in court is not acceptable, “the bench said.
The Top Court said that it was very difficult to believe that the witness who did not know the nos was accused.
2 and 4 before the incident could identify them in court after an interval of 11 years and the same was the case with All official witnesses.
“The prosecution has chosen to produce evidence regarding the number of correct truck registration and registered owner’s names.
Therefore, all cases of prosecution were doubtful, “said the bench while releasing the defendant.