LAW FOR ALL

Test Identification Parade - Identification in court at the time of trail - effects in other than rape cases - Apex court held that It is argued that identification made in court is sufficient. Reliance is placed on Malkhansingh where this Court has held that substantive evidence is the evidence of identification in court. The test identification parade provides corroboration to the identification of the witness in court if required and what weight must be attached to the evidence of identification in court, is a matter for the court of fact to examine. There can be no dispute about this proposition. But in Malkhansingh this Court was dealing with a case of gang rape. This Court noted that courts below had concurrently found the evidence of prosecutrix to be implicitly reliable. This Court noted that the appellants raped the prosecutrix one after another. She was threatened and intimidated. All this must have taken time. This Court noted that it was not a case where the identifying witness had only a fleeting glimpse of the appellants. The prosecutrix had a reason to remember the faces of the appellants as they had committed a heinous offence and put her to shame. She had abundant opportunity to note the appellants features and due to the traumatic experience the faces of the appellants must have been imprinted in her memory and there was no chance of her making a mistake about their identity. The observations of this Court will have to be read against the backdrop of these facts. Facts of this case are different. The incident does not seem to have lasted for a long time. The eye-witnesses were sitting outside the Satsang hall. It cannot be said that they had sufficient opportunity to see the faces of the accused who were on the run. In such a case failure to hold identification parade is a serious drawback in the prosecution case. = Balbir …Appellant Versus Vazir & Ors. …Respondents = 2014 – July. Part – http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/filename=41741