The observation came on an appeal filed by four people convicted under Section 55(a) of the Kerala Abkari Act for transporting spirits.

The allegation of the prosecution was that the four people transported a total quantity of 6,090 litres of spirits in 174 plastic cans in a truck with fake registration number plates and without authorisation.

The apex court discarded the testimony of a witness as he had said that he was not able to identify any persons whom he had seen 11 years back. However, he had identified the two accused though he had seen them for the first time more than 11 years back on the date of the incident.

“The identification by a witness of the accused in the Court who has for the first time seen the accused in the incident of offence is a weak piece of evidence especially when there is a large time gap between the date of the incident and the date of recording of his evidence,” a bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Abhay S Oka said.

The apex court said in such a case, test identification parade (process to identify accused) may make the identification of the accused by the witness before the Court trustworthy. The top court in its order dated October 22 said it is well settled that the test identification parade is a part of the investigation and it is not substantive evidence.

However, the absence of test identification parade may not be ipso facto sufficient to discard the testimony of a witness who has identified the accused in the Court, the bench said. In a given case, there may be otherwise sufficient corroboration to the testimony of the witness, it said.

“In some cases, the Court may be impressed with testimony of the prosecution witnesses which is of sterling quality. In such cases, the testimony of such a witness can be believed. In the present case, PW13 (witness) accepted that he is not able to identify any persons whom he had seen 11 years back.