Omission To Conduct TIP Of Recovered Articles Material When Case Is Based Solely On Recoveries: Supreme Court Acquits Murder Convict

The Supreme Court recently (on January 27), in a matter where the prosecution had solely relied on the recovery of articles for convicting accused persons for murder, observed that failure to conduct a Test Identification Parade (TIP) of the recovered articles was “sheer negligence and dereliction of duty”. While acquitting appellants/ accused persons charged with murder, the Court observed that, in cases where conviction is based on circumstantial evidence, every relevant fact must be linked with duly proved circumstances. “Therefore, this material omission on part of the Investigating Officer (PW-27) in not conducting a Test Identification Parade (TIP) of the recovered articles, more particularly when the case of prosecution is based solely upon recoveries of these articles, has created holes in the fabric of the prosecution story, which are impossible to mend. Every piece of relevant fact needs to be sewn via the golden thread of duly proved circumstances, in order to ultimately formulate the fabric of guilt.,” marked the Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol and Sandeep Mehta. At the outset, the Court pointed out that the prosecution's case was primarily based on circumstantial evidence. The Court said that in cases of murder, where the conviction is based on circumstantial evidence, such evidence must be credible and trustworthy. “In cases involving circumstantial evidence, it is crucial to ensure that the facts leading to the conclusion of guilt are fully established and that all the established facts point irrefutably towards the accused person's guilt. The chain of incriminating circumstances must be conclusive and should exclude any hypothesis other than the guilt of the accused.,” the Court said. Reliance was placed on the decision in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra (1984) 4 SCC 116, wherein the court had penned down the five golden principles for such cases. Emphasising that the guilt of an accused must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, the Court said that the gap between “may be guilty” and “must be guilty” is significant. Thus, it is the duty of the prosecution to elevate its case from the realm of 'may be true' to 'must be true., it added. Building on this, the Court marked that the only circumstantial evidence available against the accused was recoveries of ornaments worn by the deceased during the incident. The Court marked several material discrepancies in the investigating officer's testimony as to how the accused's disclosure statements led to the recovery. “In fact, he even did not care to exhibit the disclosure statements of which he was the scribe in his deposition. He also did not depose in clear words that the accused persons had led him to the place mentioned in the disclosure statements and got the articles recovered. No connection between the accused and the particular articles recovered is visible from the testimony of the Investigating Officer(PW-27).” The Court also added that there was no mention of test identification being done by the deceased's relatives. Thus, the production of these objects before the Trial Court, without an identification, casted doubt. Citing cases including Munna Kumar Upadhyay v. State of Andhra Pradesh., (2012) 6 SCC 174., to mark the significance of TIP, the Court made the above-mentioned findings. In view of these facts and circumstances, the Court termed the prosecution's case as miserably weak and concluded that the appellants' guilt was not established beyond a reasonable doubt. “Sadly, in the present case, the facta probantia fails to sustain and support the alleged factum probando, rendering the prosecution's case miserably weak. Hence, the evidence led by the prosecution against the accused person is woefully short of the mandate to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.” Thus, the impugned judgments of the Trial Court and High Court were quashed and the present appeal was allowed. Case Name: THAMMARAYA AND ANOTHER v. THE STATE OF KARNATAKA., CRIMINAL APPEAL NO(S). 649 OF 2013Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 157 Click here to read/ download the judgment

Omission To Conduct TIP Of Recovered Articles Material When Case Is Based Solely On Recoveries: Supreme Court Acquits Murder Convict

Gyanvi Khanna

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