P.N.Goel - (1.) PARTICIPATION of appellants Abdur Rahman and Ram Prasad in the dacoity committed in the night intervening 6th and 7th December, 1975 in the houses of Polo Singh, Pratap Ram and Tika Ram in village Bagzala within police station Haldwani, district Nainital rests on the evidence of identification.
(2.) THE appellants were arrested by the police and put up for test identification on 11 2 1978. THE identification proceedings were conducted by Sri M. K. Chaturvedi, Magistrate (PW 19). Both the appellants were identified by several witnesses. Out of them the prosecution examined Tika Ram, Nand Ram, Kamal Ram, Km. Hansa, Mohan Rai, Pratap Ram and Polo Singh (PWs 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 11). Tika Ram and Kamal Ram are real brothers. Km. Hansa is daughter of Tilak Ram. On an appraisal of the evidence of the above-named witnesses, the Additional Sessions Judge found that there was good evidence of identification of Polo Singh, Kamal Ram and Tika Ram against Abdur Rahman and that there was good evidence of identification of Pratap Ram and Km. Hansa against Ram Prasad. Polo Singh identified only one suspect correctly and committed one mistake. Therefore, he cannot be considered a good identifying witness. The Additional Sessions Judge himself mentioned that the performance of Polo Singh was 50% . Therefore, the identification of Polo Singh cannot safely be accepted. In this way there remains the evidence of only 2 witnesses Tika Ram & Kamal Ram against Abdur Rahman.
(3.) AS against Ram Prasad there is evidence of two witnesses Km. Hansa & Pratap Ram. Reliance cannot be placed on the testimony of Km. Hansa, Tika Ram and Kamal Ram. There are two rooms in the house of Tika Ram, Kamal Ram and Km. Hansa. On the night of occurrence Tika Ram, Kamal Ram and other male members of their family were sleeping in the bigger room. To the east of this room, there is a small room in which Km. Hansa and her sisters were sleeping. A lantern was burning in the bigger room. There was no lantern or lamp in the smaller room of Km. Hansa. Km. Hansa has wrongly stated that there was a lamp burning in the smaller room in which she was sleeping.;