Kathi David Raju v. State of Andhra Pradesh & Anr. — Threshold for a police-requested DNA test during investigation

Part of the Forensic Docket on Legal Desire Forensics — how a forensic technique fared under appellate scrutiny.

The facts

An FIR alleged that the accused/appellant had obtained a false caste certificate.

During investigation, the police sought permission to conduct a DNA test on the accused, his mother and his brother, apparently to verify the parentage underlying the caste claim.

The accused challenged the direction permitting the test through an application under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which the High Court dismissed.

On further appeal, the Supreme Court held that Section 53 of the Code does empower the police to request a DNA test of an accused during investigation, but found that, on the facts of this case, it was too early in the investigation to make such a request, and ruled in the accused’s favour on that ground.

Why this belongs in the Forensic Docket: A reminder that the power to order a DNA test during investigation is real but not unconditional — investigators should be prepared to show the investigative stage has actually reached the point where the test is necessary before seeking one.

Case details

Read the full judgment (PDF), sourced from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open dataset (AWS Open Data Registry, CC-BY-4.0).

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