Accused cannot be held guilty solely on basis of refusal to undergo Test Identification Parade: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today held that a finding of guilt cannot be based solely on the refusal of the accused to undergo a test identification parade (Rajesh @ Sarkari & Anr. v. State of Haryana)..While deciding a criminal appeal against a murder conviction, a three-judge Bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Indu Malhotra and Indira Banerjee noted that "there is no specific provision either in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) or the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, which lends statutory authority to an identification parade.".The facts of the present case involve a law student of Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, who was allegedly shot at by a group of assailants near the University's law department. The victim was rushed to hospital, but was declared dead..The father of the victim, who had witnessed the shooting, had stated that though he did not note the license plates of the motorcycles on which the accused fled, he could identify them if they were paraded before him. The sessions court, by its judgment dated June 12, 2012, concluded that "there was a ring of truth to the case of the prosecution" and that the appellants were guilty of murder of the student. The appellants and the co-accused were, therefore, sentenced to imprisonment for life..Aggrieved by the judgment of the sessions court, all three accused filed appeals before the High Court of Punjab & Haryana. By a judgment dated January 17, 2019, the High Court dismissed the appeals, prompting the appellants to approach the Apex Court..One of the prosecution's arguments was that the accused had refused to undergo the Test Identification Parade (TIP), and that this was proof of their guilt..However, the Court analysed a catena of judgments on the subject and stated that identification parades belong to the stage of investigation of the crime and "there is no provision which compels the investigating agency to hold or confers a right on the accused to claim a TIP.".Noting that TIP is governed by Section 162 of CrPC, the Court held that such a parade "does not constitute substantive evidence and the failure to hold it does not ipso facto make the evidence of identification inadmissible.".It further noted that some of the crucial evidence in the case "suffers from serious infirmities" and held that "finding of guilt cannot be based purely on the refusal of the accused to undergo an identification parade." The judgment reads,"...the identification in the course of a TIP is intended to lend assurance to the identity of the accused. The finding of guilt cannot be based purely on the refusal of the accused to undergo an identification parade...a refusal to undergo a TIP assumes secondary importance, if at all, and cannot survive independently in the absence of it being a substantive piece of evidence.".The Court also noted that the evidence on record indicated that the deceased also had several criminal charges against him, some of which had ended in acquittal on account of compromise. One of the appellants in this case was also a co-accused with the victim in one of the cases..After perusing the other evidence in the case, the Court held that when direct evidence of unimpeachable character is available and the nature of injuries is consistent with the direct evidence, the "examination of a ballistics expert need not be insisted upon as a condition to the prosecution proving its case."Noting that the prosecution cited a ballistics examiner as a witness and yet did not lead his evidence, and that there were discrepancies in the Forensic Science Lab (FSL) report, the Court held that the accused would be entitled to the benefit of the doubt..Holding that the prosecution failed to establish its case beyond reasonable doubt, the Court acquitted the appellants of the offence. This acquittal comes after the accused spent 12 years in prison for the offence..[Read judgment]