Supreme Court: N.V. Ramana, J., delivered the judgment for himself and S. Abdul Nazeer, J., dismissing the appeal filed against the decision of Patna High Court affirming the conviction and sentence awarded to the appellant by the trial court.
The appellant along with other co-accused was convicted under Section 396 IPC. Allegations against them were that they committed dacoity in the house of Kamdeo Singh and assaulting his family members while committing the act. One Kameshwar Singh, father-in-law of Kamdeo, succumbed to such injuries. The judgment of conviction and order of sentence passed by the trial court was affirmed by the High Court. Aggrieved thus, the appellant preferred the instant appeal.
The Supreme Court heard the parties and perused the record. The appellant had contended, inter alia, that there was no test identification parade which vitiated the prosecution case. Rejecting the contention, the Court, observed that test identification parade is not a substantive evidence. Its purpose is only to help the investigating agency ascertain as to whether the investigation in the case is heading in the right direction or not. There is no provision in CrPC which obliges the investigating agency to hold or confer a right on the accused to claim a test identification parade. Absence to hold it would not make inadmissible the evidence of identification in court. For such and other reasons, the Court dismissed the appeal filed by the convict-appellant. The impugned order was upheld. [Raju Manjhi v. State of Bihar,2018 SCC OnLine SC 778, decided on 02-08-2018]
