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Jayan v. The State of Kerala

Criminal Appeal · 2021 INSC 660Decided 22 Oct 2021
Criminal Appeal arising out of SLP (Criminal) No. 6767 of 2016
Justice Ajay Rastogi · Justice Abhay S. Oka

Background

The appellants were convicted under Section 55(a) of the Kerala Abkari Act for allegedly transporting 6,090 litres of spirit in a truck fitted with fake number plates, after police intercepted the vehicle near a check post in 1999. The trial court convicted three accused (the alleged truck owner, driver, and a third occupant) to three years' rigorous imprisonment, and the Kerala High Court upheld the conviction. The accused approached the Supreme Court arguing that the evidence against them was weak and unreliable.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found the prosecution's case riddled with gaps: the alleged owner's liability rested only on an inadmissible confession by a co-accused and a disputed, unproduced registration document; the prosecution never even obtained the RTO's ownership records despite recording two different registration numbers for the truck. Identification of the driver and another accused by witnesses in court came 11-12 years after the incident, without any Test Identification Parade, making that identification evidence unreliable. Concluding there was effectively "no evidence" against the alleged owner and that the identification evidence against the others could not be trusted, the Court set aside the conviction and acquitted all the appellants.

Lesson Learnt

A criminal conviction cannot rest on unreliable, decade-later courtroom identification without a Test Identification Parade, or on evidence (like ownership records) the prosecution simply failed to produce: the benefit of such gaps goes to the accused.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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