Chambers of Ishaan Garg
Ch. No. 217, Western Wing, District & Sessions Court, Tis Hazari, New Delhi, Delhi 110054
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It was also admitted by the prosecutrix in her cross-examination that she had not clearly seen the face of anyone at the time of occurrence and she could not recognize the persons committing the rape by face, but she could recognize them hearing their voice. If we were to believe that the victim did not have any acquaintance with any of the Accused persons, and that she could not see and recognize the faces of any of the Accused persons at the time of occurrence, it would appear improbable for her to recognize the Accused merely by hearing their voice. There cannot be any dispute that when the persons are known to each other, a person can certainly identify the other person by voice. However, the question of identification by voice has to be dealt with by the Court carefully. In Kirpal Singh v. State of U.P., [MANU/SC/0076/1963 : AIR 1965 SC 712], this Court, while dealing with the question of voice identification, observed as follows:
4. ...It is true that the evidence about the identification of a person by the timbre of his voice depending upon subtle variations in the overtones when the person recognizing is not familiar with the person recognized may be somewhat risky in a criminal trial. But the Appellant was intimately known to Rakkha Singh and for more than a fortnight before the date of the offence he had met the Appellant on several occasions in connection with the dispute about the sugarcane crop. Rakkha Singh had heard the Appellant and his brother calling Karam Singh to come out of the hut and had also heard the Appellant, as a prelude to the shooting referring to the dispute about sugarcane.
In light of the above observations, the Court found that the voice identification of the Accused by a witness, whose credibility had otherwise been accepted by the courts below, was not improbable. This principle was also applied by this Court in Mohan Singh v. State of Punjab, [AIR 2011 SC 3534]. In this case, voice identification was accepted, inter alia, on the ground that there was no evidence adduced to challenge the evidence of the witness that he had acquaintance with the Accused and that he knew the voice of the Accused. The Court also adverted to the decision of this Court in Inspector of Police v. Palanisamy, [MANU/SC/8144/2008 : (2008) 14 SCC 495], wherein it was held that though identification from voice is possible, no evidence had been adduced to show that the witnesses were closely acquainted with the Accused to enable voice identification and that too from very short replies.
Thus, from the above cases we may cull out the principle that identification from the voice of the Accused may be possible if there is evidence to show that the witness was sufficiently acquainted with the Accused in order to recognize him or her by voice.
In the matter on hand, the prosecutrix herself has admitted that there was no acquaintance between the victim and Accused. In such a scenario, it would be difficult for us to accept the version of the victim that she recognized the Accused from their voice. We reiterate the observations in Kirpal Singh (supra) that the identification of a person by the timbre of his voice is risky in a criminal trial, when the identifying person is not familiar enough with the Accused to be able to differentiate between subtle variations in the overtones. In the view of the lack of acquaintance between the prosecutrix and the Accused, it will not be safe for us to accept her version regarding the identity of the Accused, given the absence of a Test Identification Parade.
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
Criminal Appeal No. 1095 of 2018 (Arising from SLP (Crl.) No. 8578/2017)
Decided On: 29.08.2018
Dola Vs. The State of Odisha
Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
N.V. Ramana and Mohan M. Shantanagoudar, JJ.
Citation: AIR 2018 SC 4020
1. Leave granted.
