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51. Assuming for the sake of arguments that the said CD and hard disk were given by PW 20 to the police but the said CD was never displayed by the prosecution in the Court. Thus, there is no evidence on record to show what were the contents of the said CD. Moreover, before placing any reliance on the contents of the CD, prosecution is duty bound to establish that the CD was not tempered in any manner. The only way to ensure that the CD was not tempered or could not be tempered, it was the duty of investigating officer to note down the hash value of the CD when it was seized. PW20 in his cross-examination admitted that he did not know what was the hash value of the CD when it was given to the police. Further police had seized the hard disk with an intention to send the same to the FSL to analysis that there was no tempering in the said footage. In this regard the report of FSL is quite relevant. As per the report Ex. PW23/A, State Vs. Shyano Varghese the hard disc was sent back to the police with remark that the facility for examination and analysis for Ex. HDD1 (Hard disk) was not available in the laboratory, hence data could not be retrieved from the said hard disk. It means that in the FSL, the said hard disk could not be examined and investigating agency did not make any effort to get it examined from any other source. Thus, there is no iota of evidence whether the said hard disk contained any such footage as claimed by the prosecution. Moreover, the investigating officer also did not mention the hash value of the said hard disk when it was seized. Since hash value was not mentioned, the possibility of tempering with the contents of hard disk cannot be ruled out.

52. Hard disk was containing the primary evidence which prosecution failed to retrieve during examination, there is nothing on record which may prove that the CDs which were allegedly prepared on the basis of said hard disk contains the same contents or not. As already stated that even the hash value of said CD was also not noted down by the investigating officer. Thus, the possibility of tempering with its contents can not be ruled out. At last but not least that the said CD was not played in the Court and none of the witnesses had deposed that accused is visible in the said footage.