Authentication No: AP347417860969-18-0423
This is a technique primarily used in criminal cases to identify the accused in court. The idea of this procedure is to see if witnesses can identify the accused among various people. The Indian Evidence Act, of 1872 deals, inter alia, with the admissibility and inadmissibility of evidence in court, including the examination of witnesses and the evidentiary value of documents submitted to the Court of First Instance1.
Test identification is useful to law enforcement, not as evidence in court. Judges are off duty in test identification parade arrangements, largely like police, but if an identifier misidentifies her, the whole investigation could well be sidetracked and the investigation never resolved in an identification parade.
A disadvantage to testing is that this is a parade recommendation to officers that specific procedures must be clearly explained to investigators and that police should not be involved during inspection identification parades. Governments should increase their capacity to conduct test identification parades. It's carried out in its usual location, but the windows should be tinted so that these key people can see what's going on instead of the judges, etc 2.
The Test Identification Parade is governed by Section 540-A of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 and Section 9 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. Nothing in the Code of Criminal Procedure authorizes investigative authorities to organize parades or to give defendants the right to demand parades. Sec 162 of CrPC effectively regulates these parades. Also, in the case of Rajesh and Anr v. Haryana 3, the court ruled that refusal to participate in the process identification parade could not be grounds for conviction.
Until 2005, there were no specific provisions in the Evidence Law or the Code of Criminal Procedure for identifying defendants. A 2005 amendment to the CRPC introduced a new Section 54 that required testing for the identification ofan arrested person. A test identification parade should be held as soon as possible with the necessary protections and precautions. However, test identification is not required if the defendant has been seen several times at different times and places by witnesses4.
For hundreds of years, India has had a lively identity parade. This greatly contributes to the speeding up of investigations and early resolution of incidents. Test identification parades can be conducted by police officers,magistrates, or individuals. However, it can only retain evidential value under section 80 of the Evidence Act 1872 if it is done by the magistrate himself and the court presumes its credibility5.
If conducted by a T.I.P. Police Officer/Judge of the Peace, witnesses identifying the accused may be questioned duringthe trial. Up. Generally done in Dacoity, Riots, and Heinous Crimes. Identification is an act of the mind that takes advantage of the opportunity to see the victim. Observation should be good because older men cannot find the accusedas easily as young men can easily find the accused.
The reliability of identification by identifiers in terms of the test identification parade varies from situation to situation and from case to case. The timing, severity of the incident, the actions perpetrated by the offender, and the traumatic experience at the time such an event occurred, record permanent scars on the victim's mind and identifiers, making it clear who committed the act. remember to the time, place, and number of people involved all play a part. If this took place during the day in an open area, the victim may have had enough light to clearly identify the person, including whether the person had their face covered.
Identification is not considered adequate if the individual covers the face or other body parts, as the classifier cannot identify the individual. We believe the court will decide whether to hold the parade depending on the circumstances of the case. In the case of the Raman Bhai Narayan Bhai Patel v. AIR, Gujarat (1999) SCC6 case, the attack took place in broad daylight, and the courts ruled that if the crime was committed in broad daylight, the witnesses would easily remember and identify the person. said to be identifiable. A conviction was committed based on identification by the Test Identification Parade.
In the case of Dana Yadav v. State of Bihar AIR (2002) SCC7, the Supreme Court of India held that the sole purposeof a TIP was to corroborate the court and identify the defendant and should be identified in the court. I made a clear decision. Generally, not used if the suspect's name is not mentioned before the initial investigation or police.
In Anil Kumar vs. U.P. State. AIR (2003) SCC8, the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India held that retention of TIP was not mandatory and the defendant had no right to assert the retention of her TIP. The delay in arresting TIP is not fatal, but efforts should be made to arrest the defendant as quickly as possible so as not to expose witnesses to the defendant's pranks.
The credibility of the identification done by the identifier a regard to the test identification parade, the credibility varies from circumstance to circumstance and case to case. The time, severity of the incident acts done by the criminal, such traumatic experiences when done, it registers a permanent scar in the mind of the victim or identifier, that they remember the person who did the act clearly.
Even time of the day when the act was committed, place of occurrence, no of people involved, everything comes in to play. If done during the day time in an open place, it can be that there was enough lighting for the victim to clearly identify the person, similarly, whether the persons covered their faces, etc all comes into consideration.
A magistrate's order requiring a person to attend test identification parade does not violate his fundamental right under Article 20(3) of the Constitution. The identification of the accused at TIP by someone not accused's own act. His mere attendance or exhibition of body cannot be regarded as furnishing any positive volitional evidentiary act16.
Article 20(3)of the Constitution of India is also not violated by compelling an accused to stand up and show his face for the purpose of identification. It does not amount to giving of testimony as to the final facts. He can also be ordered to disclose any scar or mark on his body for the purpose of identification17.
During the course of investigation, witnesses may say that they will identify the culprits, if they were shown to them, they will identify the properties, if the properties are produced before them. Therefore, the necessity of holding of testof identification parade during the investigation is necessary to test the memory and veracity of the witness does arise.
Identification evidence is highly persuasive to triers of fact. There is an intuitive sense that when someone witnesses a stranger commit a crime, he or she should be able to remember that face. After all, we see and remember faces every day. However, more than four decades of research has revealed this assumption to be flawed, there is clear evidence that witnesses often struggle with accurately recognizing the face of a stranger perpetrator20. Indeed, although eyewitness testimony can be an important and valuable form of evidence, eyewitness identification errors are a leading cause of wrongful convictions in many countries21.
The evidence which requires particular attention is identification evidence, which resembles confession evidence in being, at the same time, both extremely compelling and potentially unreliable. Witnesses are frequently required to identify persons whom they have only seen fleetingly and often in confused circumstances. The identification of the perpetrator is often the only issue that needs to be determined in a criminal trial22.
Mistaken identity may often occur in good faith, but the effects can be extremely serious for the defendant and, for this reason, there is an obvious need for caution in relation to such evidence. As with evidence of lies by the defendant, the hazards associated with identification evidence are addressed by means of a Judge's direction, but there are additional safeguards which apply where the identification has been made by means of a formal procedure conducted under police supervision, such as an identification parade23.
In this case, all major judgments related to test identification parade are referred by the court in order to give the decision for the case. It was that 7-armed people came and hit members working at a petrol station at 2 am in the morning, threw stones due to which glass broke, and due to the stone, they woke up. They beat the people with lathisand robbed 12000 rupees from them, even when the neighbour came to see what was happening, he was also attacked with lathis.
Judgment in this landmark case was handed down by Judge N. V. Ramana and Hon'ble MR. Judge Mohan M. Shantanagodar. The lower court where the appeal was filed was the Patna High Court. In fact, one night a year,nearly 10 to 12 people between the ages of 20 and 26 broke into Kamdeosin's house, stole things, and complaints were filed, leading to police investigations. The injured were taken to hospital after the location of their injuries was determined.
The probative value of the test identification parade is absolute, the use of the test identification parade as mandatory evidence is outdated, and the test identification parade has only a corroborative value as evidence.
As explained more detailed manner in the cases section of the paper, in the case of State of Himachal Pradesh vs Lekhraj31 it was mentioned that "Test identification is considered a safe principle of judiciousness for authentication of the sworn testimony of various evidentiary value people appearing as witnesses in court with regards to the character of theaccused. There may anyway be special cases to this general principle when for instance the court is intrigued by a specific observer on whose testimony it can securely depend without such or other corroboration32.
A parade taken at an inquest is not considered material substantive evidence, a conviction may be based on the sole grounds of a test identification parade, and a conviction requires the identification of witnesses in court. Even if the same people who came forward in the parade came forward in court, the added value would be the same.
Test identification is usually required when the suspect's identity is in jeopardy. This is necessary for situations wherethe victim has never met the suspect before the incident. Usually, when a crime is inflicted on a victim, the victim can see the offender and later identify the offender using various mechanisms such as build, height, etc. If the investigator can identify the person, a test identification parade will be held in such cases. The parade should be held as close aspossible, including in front of the Magistrate33.
An identification parade is an investigative tool used by police to identify criminals when there are witnesses. It is to provide the suspect of a crime with a person (dummy) that matches their description. Witnesses are then required to identify the suspect from the individual. Indeed, neither the Criminal Procedure Code of 1898 nor his Qanun- e-Shahadat Ordinance of 1984 provides any instructions or details on how to conduct an identity test. Article 22 of the Qanun-e-Shahadat Regulations 1984, which is commonly referred to for identifying tests,refers only to their relevance and does not provide procedures.
The entire process of identifying the parade is detailed in Maral's Criminal Case, 2013. The identification parade should be conducted as soon as possible and all available witnesses should be invited to the first parade. Good practice in England is that the parade should be conducted by the officer on duty in charge of the police station, not by the officer in charge of the investigation. Witnesses must be allowed to see the accuseduntil all preparations have been made and they have gone to find the accused, and must not be pre-corroborated by photographs or oral or written descriptions.
Conclusion
Considering the above guidelines and the meticulousness and diligence required to ensure the transparency and accuracy of the identification process, it is the personal opinion of the authors that the results of the test identification parade should be regarded as adequate and acceptable evidence in comparison. Before a trial court if you do not follow any of the above procedures and you are able to directions to the witness. Furthermore, in contrast to a parade surrounded by groups of similarly positioned people, it is the only person or group that occupies the box designated for the defendant in court, thus identifying the defendant in court. It's pretty easy to do.
It should also be noted that the test identification parade is held by investigative authorities as soon as possible after the suspect's arrest and before the suspect is taken to the court of first instance. In the court of first instance, the defendant loses the meaning of subsequent audit results.
Delay in holding the first identification in court affect the reliability of the evidence. The purpose of test identification is to test and strengthen the trustworthiness of the evidence regarding identification of the accused in the court. Hence, the absence of test identification parade would not always be detrimental for the prosecution but it depends on the facts and circumstances of the case.
Award Winning Article Is Written By: Mr.Abhishek Kumar - LLB 3rd Year Ajeenkya Dy Patil University
| Authentication No: AP347417860969-18-0423 |
