AHMEDABAD: Due to the long time that the trial in the 2008 serial blasts case was pending, the prosecution faced a peculiar problem and had to make a request, alien to criminal procedure, to the special court.
Most of the accused were arrested and lodged in jail in 2008. Seven years later, when the witnesses were being examined and were expected to identify the accused in court, the appearance of many prisoners had changed. They had put on weight and grown beards and it was difficult for witnesses to identify them in court.
This led the prosecution to tender an application to the court saying that the accused persons’ appearance had changed and the witnesses should be permitted to identify them on basis of their photographs taken during their arrest in 2008 and affixed with the chargesheets. The government stated that their eyebrows became bushy and changes in facial and physical appearances made it impossible for panch witnesses to identify them.
The special prosecutors also argued that it would be improper to ask the prisoners to remove their beards because insistence on this would hurt their religious sentiments.
The defence lawyers objected to this request and argued that identification on the basis of photographs is a process alien to the law. This could be permitted at the most during the investigation in the absence of the accused. They questioned the evidentiary value of such identification, on the basis of pictures affixed to chargesheets. In 2018, the special court dismissed the request.
