JADUNATH SINGH & ANR. v. STATE OF U.P.
Citation: [1971] 2 S.C.R. 917; 1970 INSC 248
Court: Supreme Court of India
Bench: S.M. SIKRI , VISHISHTHA BHARGAVA, I.D. DUA
Judgment date:
Case summary
1970 INSC 248. Supreme Court of India judgment dated 1970-12-07. JADUNATH SINGH & ANR. v. STATE OF U.P. Read the judgment and case details on LawSphereX.
Judgment text
c D E F G H JADUNATH SINGH & ANR. v. STATE OF U. P. December 7, 1970 [S. M. Snoo, V. BHARGAVA AND I. D. DUA, JJ. ] Evidence Act, 1872, s. 9-ldentit,y of accused-Witnesses claiming to have known accused from before-Accused denying claim and r. equestlng ttst identifisation-Refusal of test identification whether vitioted trial. The appellants were accused of an offence under s. 302 read with s. 34 of the Indian Penal Code. Apart from P who was injured in the I incident there were, according to the prosecution, two other eye-wit· nesses M and D who knew the appellants from before. The names of the appellants were mentioned in the First Information Report liut not their parentage. The appellants, at the stage of inquiry, made an application to the Additional District Magistrate (Judicial) requellting that a test identification parade be held. According to the appellants P knew them from ·before but not the other two alleged eye-witnClises.
The Magistrate rejected the application on the ground that the charge sheet had already been filed. The same request made at the trial stage to the Sessions Judge was again rejected on the ground it was not bona fide. The trial court, believing the eye witnesses, convicted the appellants. The High Court upheld their conviction and did not accept their plea that the trial had been vitiated because they had been denied a test indentification parade. In appeal to this Court by special leave, HELD : As laid down bv this Court in Perkash Chand Sogani's case the absence of teu identification in all cases is not fatal, and if the accus· ed person is well-known by sight it would be waste of time to put him up for identification. But if there is any doubt in the matter the prose· cution should hold an identification parade specially if an accused says that the alleged eye-witnesses did not know him previously.
It may be that there is no express provision in the Code of Criminal Procedure enabling an accused to insist on an identification parade but if the accused does make an application and that application is turned down and It transpires during the course of the trial that the witnesses did not know the accused previously, the prosecution will, unless there is some evidence, run the risk of losing the case on this point. [924 G-925 C] Perk,,sh Ch~nd Sogani v. State of Rajasthan, Cr. A. No. 92/1956 dt. 15-1-1957, applied. · Sajjan Singh v. Emperor, A. I. R. 1945 Laj. 48, State of U. P. v. Jagnoo, A. l. R. 1962 All. 333, In re Sangish, A. LR. 1948 Mad. 113, Awadh Singh & Ors. v. Patna State, A. l. R. 1954 Pat 483, Provash Kumar Bose v. Tiie King, A. I. R. 1951 Cal. 475, Kanta Prasad v. Delhi Administration [1958) S. C. R. 1218. 1221, referred to. · ' In the . present case it could be said about D that his knowledge of the accused was very scant.
The claim of the other witness M that h& had. known the accused for about four years was not challenged in ctoss· examination Therefore on the facts of the case the trial of the appellants 918 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1971] 2 S. C. R. could not he held to be. vitiated because of the denial of test identification A although the reason given by the Magistrate for refusing it, namely, that the charge-sheet had already been filed, was wrong. [925 G-926 CJ CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Criminal Appeal No. 55 of 1970. Appeal by special leave from the judgment and order dated B September 26, 1969 of the Allahabad High Court in Criminal App! lal No, 1037 of 1969 and Referred No. 82 of 1969. Yogeshwar Prasad, S. K. Bagga and Sureshta Bagga, for the appe! llants. 0. P. Rana, for the respondent. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by. c Sikri, J.
-This appeal by special leave is directed against the judgment of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad confirming conviction of the two appellants by the Sessions Judge, Mainpuri, 0 under s. 302/34 of the Indian Panel Code. Appellant Jadunath ~ Singh was sentenced to death by the Sessions Judge and appellant Girand Singh was sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life. Jn order to appreciate the points raised before us by the learned counsel for . the appellants it is necessary to state a few facts. It is alleged against the appellants that on. February 26, 1968, at about E 7 . 30 a. m. , in furtheran9e of their common intention, they murdered one Ram Swamp Pandey by repeatedly stabbing him to death, when iie was passing on the Grand Trunk road in the town of Bewar to catch a truck. As many as 34 injuries were found on th~ deceased at . the post-mortem conducted on his body on the same day at about 3 p. m.
F The prosecution case in brief is as follows : It is cmmhllll ground that there was great enmity between . the deceased and Laturi Ahir and his sons, the two appellants .. The deceased appre- hended danger to his life from them, and on November 23, 1967, he sent an application to the Superintendent of Police, Mainpuri, G alleging that Laturi and his son, Jadunath, Brahma, Panna Lal and . Anokhey, etc. were terrorising the weaker and poorer sections of . the village community and declaring openly that they would kill ·the deceased t0 silence his opposi~ion for ever. He prayed that an enquiry. may be made and suitable action taken against them. ·On February 25, 1968 ( the deceased came to Bewar in the evening H to meet the A. D. 0. in connection with a,n enquiry on a complaint made against Munshi Lal Pradhan of the village. ·He . could not meet the A. D. 0. as he was out of station. He stayed during the A JADUNATH I'. u. P. STATE {Sikri, J. ) 91~ night with Prem Narain, P. W.
1, who happened to be a brother-in· law of liis cousin Gulati Ram. According to Prem Narain, both of them got up in the morning at 6. 45 a. m. and since it was Shivratri that day the deceased did not take any food and they left for the bus stand at Bewar. When they reached the bus-stand at 8 about 7. 10 a. m. they found that the bus for Etah via Sultanganj had already left. The next bus was due to go at 9. 30 a. m. but,, as Pie deceased thought that he could get a seat in some truck near the Prem Hotel and the who did not know the accused before the occurrence, but failure to hold such a parade would not make inadmissible the evidence of identification in court. The weight to be attached to such identification would be a matter for the courts of fact and it is not for this Court to reassess the evidence unless exceptional grounds were established necessitating such a course. " It seems to us that it has been clearly laid down by this Court in Perkash Chand Sogani v.
The State of Rajasthan\') that the absence of test identification in all cases is not fatal and if the accused person is well-knowri by sight it would be waste of time to put him up for identification. Of course if the prosecution fails to . hold an identification on the plea that the witnesses already knew the accused well and il transpires in the course of the trial (1) A. I. R. 1951 Cal. 475. . (2) [1958] S. C. R. 1218, 1221. (3) G. A. No. 92 of 1956 decided on 15-1-1957, E F G H - JADUNATH \', u. P. STATE (Sikri, ). ) ~25 ..... A that _the witnesses did not know the accused previously, the pro- secution woμld run the risk of losing its case. It seems to us that if there is any doubt in the miitter the prosecution should hold an identification parade specially if an accused says tbat the alleged eye-witnesses did not know him previously.
It may be that there is no express provision in the Code of Criminal Procedure enabl- B ing an accused lo insist on an identification parade but if the accused does make an application and that application is turned down and it transpires during the course of the tria\'that the wit- ;nesses ·did not . know the accus~d previously, as pointed out above the prosecution wil), unless there is some other evidence, run the risk of losing the case on 'this point. c D E F In the present· case, however, it is clear that P. W. Mahesh Chandra knew the accusea perso. ns for about· four years and said : "I know the accused persons, J adunath Singh an_d Girand Singh for about 4 years. ' They live at village Garhiya lying at a distan~e of three furlongs "from Bewat. Girand Singh is reading at the Amar Shaheed Inter Colleg~. Bewar. " No cmss-examination was directed on this point. P. W.
3, Dwarika Prasad, stated': "I had seen Girand visiting Bewar before that but I had seen Jadunath at Bewar only once or twice before that dflY· Identifies both the accused persons in the dock. Lays hand correctly on Jadunath; and also lays hands correctly 011 Cirand in the dock. " In cross-examination he ·stated : "I had seen Jndunath accused at Bewar at the shop of one Chhakku once or twice before the occurrence. I had seen him two or 2t years back. " It seems to us that the reason given by the Public Prosecutor G in the report and the_ . reason given by the Additional District Magistrate '(Judicial) in the. order directing that identifica~ion re- quested for ·be not held were not valid. The foct that a charge sheet had been received and the_ accused had been named · by P. W. s was no justification for not having ordered the test identifi- cation. But on the facts of this case it is clear that P. W. 2 at least knew the accused from before. As regards P. W.
3, althouoh H he claims to have known the accused. it is clear that his kno~--· ledge of the accused w:is very sc:int and if it had not been for the evidence of P. W. 2 we would not have placed reliance on the 926 SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1911 i,2 s. c. Il evidence of P. W. 3 in view of the fact that the police did not ask A him to identify th~ appellant. It is stated in Phipson on the Law of Evidence, 9th Ed. , p. 415, as follows: . "In criminal cases it is improper to identify the accused -only when in the dock; the police shoulci place B him, before hand, with others, and ask the· witness to pick him out. Nor should the witness be guided in any way, nor asked "Is that the man ? " We consider that the same is the law in India, if the identity is in: donbt. Accordingly on the facts of this case we are of th~ opinion' that the trial was not vitiated because the accused persons were denied identification.
Regarding the second ~oint, we have already extracted the evidence of the doctor, and 1t is quite clear to us that the evidence D is not in confiict with the prosec\ltion case. If the occurrence took place at nbout 7 . 30. n. m. and the deceased had not taken any food in the morning, his stomach would still be empty at 7. 30 11. m. If ·anything the medical evidence destroys the case of the defence that the murder took place at about 3 in the morning. We are unable to think that the deceased would leave with J>rem E Narain at 3 a. m. to catch a bus ii•hich was supposed to leave at about 7 R. m. This appeal is by special leave and this Court does not re- appreciate the evidence. The other points raised by the learned counsel are of t\lat nature, and at any rate there is no substance in these points. F The appeal accordingly fails and is dismissed. G. C, Appeal dismissed. L694SupCI/i0-2500--29·4·72-GIPF. L
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