The Supreme Court of India has set aside the conviction of two persons, including one who had been sentenced to death, following a challenge to the fingerprint evidence.
Not only was there a doubt over the reliability of the evidence, but even if it had been reliable, it was questionable whether it was sufficient to ground a conviction.
“There is nothing on record regarding the competence of said Dharmender Singh, and whether he was adequately trained, or was an expert in lifting the fingerprints from material such as glasses; nor was any evidence led detailing out the procedure adopted by him. In the absence of any such material, it is extremely difficult to rely on the report that the lifted fingerprints from the glasses matched with the sample fingerprints of accused Sanjay @ Sonu and Saurabh @ Sanju.”
“It must be stated that both Sanjay @ Sonu and Saurabh @ Sanju were unknown faces to PW5 Ujjwal, and were not subjected to any Test Identification. Apart from identification by PW5 Ujjwal in Court for the first time, there is no other material to establish their presence. Thus, even if we accept that fingerprints lifted from the house of the deceased could be associated with the said two accused, that by itself, in the absence of any substantive piece of evidence, cannot be made the basis of their conviction. These accused are therefore entitled to the benefit of doubt.”