He Supreme Court recently (on January 27), in a matter where the prosecution had solely relied on the recovery of articles for convicting accused persons for murder, observed that failure to conduct a Test Identification Parade (TIP) of the recovered articles was “sheer negligence and dereliction of duty”.

While acquitting appellants/ accused persons charged with murder, the Court observed that, in cases where conviction is based on circumstantial evidence, every relevant fact must be linked with duly proved circumstances.

“Therefore, this material omission on part of the Investigating Officer (PW-27) in not conducting a Test Identification Parade (TIP) of the recovered articles, more particularly when the case of prosecution is based solely upon recoveries of these articles, has created holes in the fabric of the prosecution story, which are impossible to mend. Every piece of relevant fact needs to be sewn via the golden thread of duly proved circumstances, in order to ultimately formulate the fabric of guilt.,” marked the Bench of Justices Vikram Nath, Sanjay Karol and Sandeep Mehta.

At the outset, the Court pointed out that the prosecution's case was primarily based on circumstantial evidence. The Court said that in cases of murder, where the conviction is based on circumstantial evidence, such evidence must be credible and trustworthy.

“In cases involving circumstantial evidence, it is crucial to ensure that the facts leading to the conclusion of guilt are fully established and that all the established facts point irrefutably towards the accused person's guilt. The chain of incriminating circumstances must be conclusive and should exclude any hypothesis other than the guilt of the accused.,” the Court said.

Reliance was placed on the decision in Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra (1984) 4 SCC 116, wherein the court had penned down the five golden principles for such cases. Emphasising that the guilt of an accused must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, the Court said that the gap between “may be guilty” and “must be guilty” is significant. Thus, it is the duty of the prosecution to elevate its case from the realm of 'may be true' to 'must be true., it added.