In the present case, the police conducted an exercise of re-enactment or demonstration of the crime scene by involving the accused persons. A crime scene re-enactment is a technique which is gaining prominence in the investigation of heinous offences. On its own, a re-enactment exercise does not constitute any direct form of evidence of the offence, as it is essentially in the nature of recreated evidence. However, it serves the limited purpose of explaining the physical attributes of the occurrence, such as place of occurrence, lighting conditions at the relevant point of time etc., as well as to visualize the manner of commission of the offence. It may not directly assist the Court in reaching any conclusion, but may help in the appreciation of the surrounding evidence on record, especially the visual evidence of the events. {Para 87}
88. The re-enactment or demonstration of an occurrence by an
accused is often based on eye-witness accounts of the offence or
on the basis of CCTV footage extracted from nearby cameras
installed in public spaces. Nevertheless, it cannot be held as a
general proposition that every re-enactment or demonstration of
a crime scene per se amounts to personal testimony of the
accused. If the re-enactment is merely based on a direction to
walk or to act a certain way or to imitate a visual sequence, it
does not necessarily involve any physical manifestation or
disclosure of the personal knowledge of the accused. In that
sense, it does not amount to any personal testimony. However, if
the accused is somehow led into demonstrating the incriminating
acts committed by him from his own knowledge, the same would
amount to testimonial compulsion and would be squarely hit by
Section 25 and 26 of Evidence Act. Therefore, it would be
dangerous to lay down a general rule against the admissibility of
evidence based on re-enactment or demonstration of the
occurrence, as it would effectively kill a potent and scientific
investigative technique. The right approach is to tread a
proportionate path and see whether the re-enactment is merely a
directed demonstration to analyse physical attributes of the
suspects or a manifestation of the personal knowledge of the
accused. Although, we must be mindful of the fact that
inherently, by its very nature, an exercise of re-enactment of
occurrence is carried out as per the directions given by the
investigating officer and the re-enacted version does not amount
to a personal version of the accused. Rather, it remains an
enactment or demonstration of the version of the investigating
officer. Per se, a re-enactment of an occurrence is merely
‘created’ document/evidence and on its own, it hardly proves
anything. On the basis of such re-enactment, expert analysis such
as gait analysis is carried out, which gives rise to a distinct piece
of evidence, with distinct implications. Such expert evidence is
not based on the personal testimony of the accused and is merely
an analysis of the physical attributes of the accused, which could
be used for the purpose of identification during trial. Thus, the
thin line between ‘re-enactment’ and ‘evidence based on re-enactment’ needs to be acknowledged.
89. Importantly, it needs to be noted that evidence based on a
re-enactment or demonstration is not a substantive piece of
evidence of the actual commission of the offence. It is merely
corroborative evidence which may be useful to corroborate the
identities and physical attributes of the suspects, sequence of the
alleged occurrence, physical attributes of the place of occurrence
etc. On its own, re-enacted evidence cannot be made the basis to
arrive at a finding of conviction.
REPORTABLE
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO(S). 2493-2502 OF 2025
THE STATE OF TAMIL NADU Vs PONNUSAMY & ORS.
Author: SATISH CHANDRA SHARMA, J.
Citation: 2026 INSC 507
Dated: May 19, 2026.
Read full judgment here: click here.
