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Suresh @ Unni @ Vadi Suresh vs. The State of Kerala

Not available · 2024 INSC 350Decided 30 Apr 2024
Not available
Justice B.R. Gavai · Justice Sandeep Mehta

Background

In 2006, a gang of about eleven men, armed with swords, choppers and country-made bombs, attacked a video shop in Kerala, killing one person and seriously injuring another, apparently in retaliation because the shop owner and his father had assisted the prosecution in an earlier, unrelated murder case. The appellant, arrested only in 2008 (two years after the incident), was convicted mainly because two witnesses identified him in court for the first time, roughly four-and-a-half years after the crime, without any Test Identification Parade ever having been held.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that convicting someone based solely on an in-court identification made for the very first time, years after the incident and without a prior Test Identification Parade, is inherently unsafe. Both key witnesses admitted they did not know the appellant beforehand and that police had shown him to them before the identification. The Court also found the recovery of an allegedly blood-stained iron rod more than two years after the crime (and after two monsoons) incredible, and noted that the appellant had been described inconsistently across chargesheets, raising a real possibility of mistaken identity. With the case built on this shaky foundation and no independent corroboration, the Court held the prosecution failed to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt and acquitted him.

Lesson Learnt

Identifying a stranger for the first time in court, years after a crime and without a proper Test Identification Parade, is weak and unreliable evidence. Courts will not sustain a conviction built mainly on such delayed, unverified identification.

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

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