Raja v. State by the Inspector of Police — Test Identification Parade corroborating multiple eyewitnesses

Part of the Forensic Docket on Legal Desire Forensics — a conviction confirmed through final appeal, kept here as a method-of-crime record.

The facts

Seven persons were prosecuted for dacoity and related offences under Sections 394, 396, 449 and 395/397 of the Penal Code, with five injured eyewitnesses testifying against them.

Accused Nos.

1 to 6 were identified by all of the eyewitnesses in a Test Identification Parade, and the trial court convicted the six of them along with the seventh accused.

On appeal to the Supreme Court by the convicted accused, the Court held that the presence and participation of accused Nos.

1 to 6 stood proved through the eyewitnesses’ account, and found no infirmity in the identification evidence gathered through the TIP.

The convictions were upheld and the appeal was dismissed.

Status: conviction upheld through final appeal.

Why this belongs in the Forensic Docket: A Test Identification Parade in which multiple injured eyewitnesses independently and consistently identify the same accused remains one of the strongest tools available to link a defendant to a violent multi-accused crime.

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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