Sri vs State Rep. by The Inspector of Police, Q Branch, Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu

Held: Judgment of the trial Court and the impugned judgment, set aside – Courts below erred in holding that the appellant-Ranjan is the same as the absconding accused “Sri” (A-5), and the conviction based on the flawed identification is unsustainable – The identity of the appellant rests solely on the belated and improved testimonies of PW-8 and PW-9, who admittedly did not disclose the name “Ranjan” in earlier proceedings and introduced it only after the appellant’s arrest – There is no contemporaneous description, no documentary linkage, and no independent corroboration connecting the appellant with the alleged absconding accused “Sri” (A-5) – Absence of reliable identification material and the failure of the prosecution to establish how the appellant came to be implicated in the case by linking him as “Sri” using an alias name renders the case on identity wholly doubtful, making it unsafe to sustain the conviction – Appellant was continuously and openly residing in Trichy and had duly registered himself as a refugee with the K.K. Nagar Police Station, Trichy, a fact also confirmed by appellant’s landlady (PW-25) – It is the prosecution’s own case that the absconding accused “Sri” (A-5) was being sought to be arrested and was being actively searched for since 2016 – Despite this, for more than five years, the investigating agency failed to trace or apprehend the said accused, even though, as per their own case, he was residing openly at a known and registered address under the alias name “Ranjan” – Total lack of effort on the part of the IOs to trace and apprehend the absconding accused “Sri” (A-5), or to establish any credible link between “Sri” and the appellant-Ranjan during this entire period, itself creates a grave doubt regarding the bona fides of the prosecution’s case – Moreover, not only the appellant was residing openly at his known address, but he was also simultaneously engaging with the Switzerland Embassy at New Delhi and local authorities for obtaining a police clearance certificate in order to travel to Switzerland to join his wife and son – On facts, the conduct of the appellant is wholly inconsistent with the prosecution’s case and entirely consistent with that of an innocent person going about his routine life – Appellant was falsely implicated in this case without there being any evidence to connect him with the crime, acquitted. [Paras 43, 56, 58, 59, 62, 63] Evidence – Material Improvement – When:

Held: Entire case of the prosecution on the question of identity rests solely on the oral testimony of PW-8 and PW-9, whose version is completely unreliable – No Test Identification Parade was conducted after the appellant’s arrest – There is a complete absence of reliable oral or documentary evidence linking the appellant to the accused “Sri” (A-5) – IO (PW-29) himself admitted that only the name “Sri” appears in the earlier proceedings and cases, and that the name “Ranjan” does not find mention anywhere in the investigation records – Not a single official record, whether the FIR, Chargesheet, or any other police document, reflects the name “Ranjan” in conjunction with the absconding accused “Sri” prior to the appellant’s arrest – In the absence of any such evidence, the highly belated introduction of the name “Ranjan” as alias of “Sri” post-arrest constitutes a material improvement that seriously undermines the credibility of the prosecution’s case. [Paras 30, 53, 54]