On the night of 2nd July 1995, police personnel patrolling Delhi’s Ashok Yatri Niwas were alarmed after hearing screams from nearby witnesses who saw smoke coming out of a restaurant named Bagia Bar-be-Que. As they reached the spot, the police personnel noticed a man feeding a tandoor. They put out the fire and found a woman’s body. What followed entered public memory as the tandoor murder case. According to the Supreme Court judgment in the case, the discovery of the body led the investigators to a flat, a vehicle and a firearm.
There were a lot of questions in the minds of the investigating team. Who was the woman? Had she died before being fed to the tandoor? What linked the body to the flat, the car and the weapon? According to the court documents, an X-ray could not be done at the initial stage as the machine was reportedly out of order. A second post-mortem was conducted, leading to the recovery of bullets. Ballistic examination of the bullets linked them and the cartridge cases with a revolver owned by then-Youth Congress leader Sushil Sharma.
The identity of the deceased woman was confirmed through DNA testing, which was conducted at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, as Naina Sahni, wife of Sushil Sharma. He was convicted by the Sessions Court and the High Court, and the conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court of India in 2013, almost 18 years after the incident. While the lower courts awarded the death sentence to Sharma, the apex court commuted it to life imprisonment.
This is one of the cases that shows the strength of forensic work and its dependence on functioning systems. The case was not “solved” by one scientific test. Medical evidence, ballistic examination, identification, recovery of material, police investigation and judicial assessment had to fit together to ensure conviction. It also showed something less glamorous, that a broken machine could affect the process at a crucial stage and lead to delays.
In most crime reports, evidence is simply said to have been “sent to the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL)”. However, the journey does not begin there. An object recovered at a scene must be recognised, recorded, collected, packed, sealed, stored, forwarded, received, examined, interpreted and then defended in court. If a forensic report is pending, the delay may be before the parcel reaches the lab, inside the lab, or after the lab has finished.
The main question that needs to be answered is what has to happen before material found at a crime scene becomes reliable evidence in court, and where the journey slows down.
There is a long process that investigators have to follow before the evidence reaches a forensic laboratory. The process starts at the crime scene. According to the Kerala Police investigation SOP, the first officer who reaches the crime scene has to guard and cordon off the area, protect it from contamination and weather, and call specialists depending on the case. Those specialists may include forensic scientists, fingerprint experts, photographers and cyber experts.
The process matters because the laboratory receives an exhibit, not the whole scene. Photographs, sketches, notes and seizure records preserve information that a parcel alone cannot carry. If a knife is recovered from the floor, its value depends on what is found on it, where it was found, who found it and how it was handled.
Let’s understand this with an example. Imagine that investigators found a shirt with suspected bloodstains during a murder investigation. This is a sample exhibit, not a real case being added to the story. Was it found near the body, inside a cupboard, in a car or at the accused person’s house? Was it wet or dry? Did the investigators photograph the shirt before moving it from the place where it was first spotted?
The Uttar Pradesh Police crime-scene procedures emphasise protective equipment, systematic documentation and photographs taken with scales. A stain, footprint, cartridge case or phone can lose part of its meaning if its original position is not recorded. Once an object is lifted, its relationship with the rest of the scene is gone unless the police have preserved that relationship in records.
Preservation of the evidence is another early test. Kerala’s SOP for bloodstained material says wet clothing should be dried at room temperature before being packed in clean paper. It warns against packing wet samples and against putting multiple items in a single evidence bag. These are prescribed safeguards, not proof that every police station follows them in every case.
The shirt also has to be distinguished from a reference sample. The stain is material of uncertain origin. A separately collected and properly identified sample from a person allows comparison. Delhi FSL’s biological evidence guidelines distinguish material recovered from scenes from samples collected from individuals. If the two are confused or contaminated, the question sent to the laboratory may itself become unreliable.
Once material is collected by the investigating officers, it is labelled, packed and sealed. If it is kept at the police station before dispatch, it enters the malkhana, the police station’s property and evidence store. The UP chain-of-custody chart traces the movement of an exhibit from collection and documentation to the malkhana, dispatch by a special messenger and receipt at the laboratory.
Chain of custody is a simple idea, but it carries enormous legal weight. It answers four important questions: who collected the material, who had it, where it was kept and when it changed hands. A forensic result may say what was found in a parcel. Chain of custody explains why the court should accept that the tested parcel is the same one recovered during investigation.
Delhi FSL’s submission instructions show why paperwork is not a minor clerical issue. The laboratory asks for particulars of parcels, legible seals, matching specimen seal impressions, supporting records and a clear description of the examination required. A forwarding letter that merely says “examine” may not tell the expert what the investigator needs established.
For the bloodstained shirt, the useful request is not “find the murderer”. The laboratory can be asked whether the stain is biological, whether it is blood, whether further examination is possible and whether it can be compared with reference material. Delhi’s forwarding manual also requires separate packing and identification of articles, which is meant to reduce the risk that material from one exhibit will mix with another.
The specimen seal gives the receiving laboratory something against which to check the parcel. The seizure memo connects the parcel to the recovery. Medical or post-mortem documents may explain the question being asked. If these are missing, unclear or inconsistent, the laboratory may have to seek clarification. The Delhi instructions show what must be submitted, but not how often defects delay examination.
Time before laboratory receipt is not the same as time spent inside the laboratory. If the shirt remains in police custody for weeks before dispatch, those weeks should not be counted as scientific examination. A meaningful delay audit has to separate collection, dispatch, receipt, examination, reporting and collection of the report.
An FSL examines exhibits and answers questions, not a “case” in the abstract. One criminal case may generate several parcels, each requiring a different division. A broad picture of the work can be seen from Delhi FSL’s forwarding manual, its physical sciences services and its cyber forensics services.
Inside an FSL, different divisions answer different investigative questions. Biology and serology examine whether a material is biological and what it can establish. DNA examination looks at whether a usable profile can be obtained and compared with reference material. Chemistry and toxicology test for drugs, poisons or other relevant substances.
Ballistics examines firearms, bullets, cartridge cases and firing-related traces. Questioned documents experts study handwriting, signatures, alterations and other document features. Physical evidence examination looks at glass, paint, fibres, tool marks and similar traces to see whether they support a connection. Digital forensics deals with relevant data that can be recovered and examined from devices or storage media.
The shirt may go to biology or serology. A bullet recovered in the same investigation may go to ballistics. A seized mobile phone may go to digital forensics. Delhi’s cyber division, for example, lists device imaging and recovery of data, including deleted data, among its functions. Success in one division does not guarantee that another division will get a usable result.
Once the exhibit reaches the laboratory, it must be received, scrutinised and allocated. The examiner conducts the relevant tests, records observations, interprets them and prepares a report. Delhi FSL’s quality management framework refers to controlled procedures, method validation, competency assessment, instrument maintenance and reporting. These are safeguards, not formalities.
This is why the laboratory cannot be understood only as a building with machines. A machine may produce a reading, but a scientist has to decide whether the material is suitable, whether the result answers the question and what limits must be stated.
The institutional map is also not uniform. A Home Ministry reply in December 2024 listed state laboratories, regional laboratories and central laboratories separately. Mobile forensic teams assist at scenes. This is not a fixed ladder through which every exhibit travels.
Availability differs by laboratory. Maharashtra’s official division availability table shows that not every laboratory offers every discipline. An investigator has to send the right question to a facility that can answer it. A mobile unit may help at the scene, but it cannot replace every specialist examination required later.
The most visible part of the bottleneck is pendency. Rajasthan provides a useful dated example. It began 2025 with 36,919 pending cases, received 32,964 new cases and examined 32,606 cases. That leaves 37,277 cases pending at year-end. Its online case-status page states 37,227 in the grand-total row, but the laboratory rows add up to 37,277. The 2025 annual report also gives 37,277.
The same data separately records 3,05,023 exhibits examined. That number cannot be read as 3,05,023 criminal cases. One case may contain several exhibits, and one exhibit may not tell the full story. The official Rajasthan table shows why “cases” and “exhibits” must not be used interchangeably.
Rajasthan’s laboratory queue, calendar year 2025. All four figures count cases. Closing pendency follows the annual report and reconciled laboratory totals.
Rajasthan’s annual report identifies DNA, toxicology and cyber examination as the largest closing queues, with 19,649, 6,298 and 6,111 cases respectively. The same annual report also notes that liquor cases moved to the excise laboratory in 2025. That change affects year-to-year comparison of total receipts. Without such details, a headline backlog figure can mislead more than it informs.
A laboratory can improve in one place and still carry a large overall burden. Rajasthan’s Kota laboratory reduced pendency from 1,214 to 958 during 2025, even as the state’s combined queue increased. Delhi also reported progress. The Tribune, citing an August 2026 ministerial review, said “critical case” pendency at the Delhi FSL fell from 27,585 in June 2025 to 7,178 on 31st July 2026. The category and period differ from Rajasthan’s annual data, so the figures cannot be used for a direct ranking.
Age is the other missing layer in the investigation. A total backlog does not show whether a case has waited for two weeks or five years. In Hari Mahato v State of Jharkhand, an order dated 4th March 2025 recorded a laboratory statement showing 4,095 pending cases, including 188 associated with 2020.
Central laboratory figures have to be separated from state figures. A parliamentary reply dated 11th February 2025 recorded 1,318 pending cases at the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Kolkata, as of 31st December 2024. That was one central laboratory’s workload, not West Bengal’s statewide pendency. The Home Ministry had told Parliament in December 2024 that state FSL pendency data were not maintained centrally. On the records examined for this article, a comparable, current all-India total cannot be established.
When people say an FSL report took six months, the statement is incomplete unless the stages are known. The delay could be before dispatch, at acceptance, before allocation, during examination, during review, or after the report is ready but not collected. Each stage points to a different failure.
The case of Vinit Yadav v State of Haryana, decided by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on 29th February 2024, shows the importance of these numbers. The laboratory director’s affidavit said the case was received on 10th May 2023. Priority examination began on 29th August. Examination was completed on 23rd November, correcting an earlier date of 3rd November. The field unit collected the report on 5th December.
Timeline from the director’s affidavit reproduced in Vinit Yadav. The intervals measure elapsed calendar days, not continuous testing. Collection and police dispatch dates are left unspecified because the cited laboratory chronology does not establish them.
The affidavit also identified specific problems, including equipment breakdown, a priority case getting mixed with routine cases and failure to notify the field unit that the report was ready. That is not one generic delay. It is a chain of delays before, during and after examination.
This is the difference between elapsed time and active examination time. A report issued after months does not necessarily mean continuous testing for months. The exhibit may have waited, the instrument may have been unavailable, other priority work may have intervened, or the report may have sat ready before collection.
Complexity cannot be ignored either on a case-by-case basis. A Home Ministry parliamentary reply on DNA and viscera reports says the time required varies with the number of exhibits and the complexity of the case. The ministry also said the Directorate of Forensic Science Services had issued standard turnaround times for central laboratories and circulated them to state FSLs. A prescribed turnaround target, however, is not the same as measured compliance in every laboratory.
Older audits show how narrow a bottleneck can be. The CAG’s Bihar report of 2017 recorded ballistic cases awaiting test-fired material and 443 viscera exhibits awaiting analysis because a viscera-cutter post was vacant. Those are historical findings, not a claim about Bihar’s current position. They show why “shortage” is too broad unless the missing input, person, instrument or approval is identified.
Review and reporting also take time. They cannot simply be removed to improve disposal numbers. Delhi’s quality framework includes scientific reporting and oversight. But the system should distinguish the date examination ended, the date the report was authorised and the date the investigator received it. Without those dates, nobody can say where the file actually waited.
The figures on laboratories eventually lead to people. Rajasthan’s annual report records that, as of 31st December 2025, its scientific and technical cadre had 639 sanctioned posts, 274 personnel in position and 365 vacancies across the main laboratory, regional laboratories and district mobile units. Senior scientific officers accounted for 77 vacancies against 117 sanctioned posts. The same staffing table records ministerial, accounts and other personnel separately.
A vacancy in administration and a vacancy in DNA examination do not affect a DNA queue in the same way. A driver, clerk, lab assistant and reporting officer all matter, but they do not add the same scientific capacity. The practical question is which posts are vacant and whether the remaining staff can independently examine and report.
CFSL Kolkata shows the limits of aggregated staffing data. The Home Ministry’s February 2025 parliamentary reply put sanctioned technical and administrative strength together at 101, against 64 personnel in position. The difference is 37 posts. But the reply does not split that gap by discipline or identify how many were scientific vacancies.
Usable capacity also depends on training and authorisation. Delhi’s quality management division lists competency assessment, authorisation and training records among its responsibilities. A newly recruited person is not automatically an independent reporting officer on day one. The system needs trained examiners, reporting capacity, maintenance and administrative support.
The Centre has tried to add personnel through contracts. In a reply dated 11th February 2026, the Home Ministry said 154 forensic experts had been engaged on contract in seven CFSLs during 2025-26. The stated objective was to reduce pendency. The reply does not show that every laboratory had achieved zero pending work.
This is why a universal “cases per scientist” benchmark can be misleading. Different examinations demand different time, skill and review. A routine toxicology case, a degraded DNA sample, a damaged digital device and a complex ballistic comparison do not consume identical effort. What matters is the usable capacity available in the division where the queue is longest.
A forensic report does not end the journey. It starts another test in court. In Rahul v State of Delhi, decided on 7th November 2022, the Supreme Court acquitted the three accused in the Chhawla rape and murder case. The judgment raised concerns about collection and sealing of biological samples, uncertainty over custody of a seized car and the evidentiary basis of DNA findings.
The judgment recorded that samples seized on 14th and 16th February 2012 were sent for examination on 27th February after remaining in the police station malkhana. In the circumstances of that case, the court said the possibility of tampering could not be ruled out. It also found that the courts below had not adequately examined the basis of the DNA conclusions or the reliable application of the techniques. The acquittal rested on wider evidentiary and fair-trial deficiencies, not on laboratory delay alone.
The procedural history did not end there, as the review petitions were dismissed on 2nd March 2023. That later order confirms the Supreme Court’s position after review. It also underlines a necessary caution, that the case does not create a rule that every gap between collection and dispatch destroys forensic evidence.
The lesson is more precise. For the bloodstained shirt, the scientist may say what was found on the material examined. The prosecution still has to establish that the material examined was the same shirt recovered from the scene, and that its custody remained reliable. A report can strengthen a case only if the foundation beneath the exhibit survives scrutiny.
The bottleneck does not always end when the FSL finishes its work. In August 2025, The Times of India reported that a Delhi court imposed costs on an investigating officer in a Neb Sarai case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act for failing to file a supplementary chargesheet despite collecting the FSL report on 3rd April. At a later sitting the same day, the court recorded that the supplementary chargesheet and report had been filed.
That episode concerns delay after receipt of the result, not testing time. For victims, families, investigators and accused persons, this may sound technical. However, for reform, it is essential. A reminder to the laboratory will not help if the report is already with the police.
Forensic evidence should also not be treated only as a tool for conviction. It can support a lead, weaken it, exclude a suspect, identify a victim, or return an inconclusive answer. In the shirt example, a usable comparison, an unsuitable sample and an exclusion would all matter differently. The job is to establish what the material can reliably show.
India’s new criminal procedure gives this journey greater importance. Section 176(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) provides for forensic expert visits and videography in offences punishable with seven years or more. Its operation is tied to dates notified by state governments within the statutory five-year window. It should therefore not be described as an identically implemented requirement everywhere from one date. Where the required forensic facility is not available, the provision allows notified use of another state’s facility.
A government reply dated 28th July 2026 confirms a National Forensic Infrastructure Enhancement Scheme outlay of Rs 2,254.43 crore for 2024-25 to 2028-29, including provisions for nine National Forensic Sciences University campuses and seven CFSLs. These are scheme commitments. They do not, by themselves, prove that every proposed permanent facility is already operational. The same reply says several university campuses were functioning from transit buildings.
Expansion can help only if it strengthens the entire route. More laboratories may reduce distance. More trained examiners may reduce queues. Better equipment may cut downtime. Clearer submission rules may prevent defective parcels from entering limbo. The individual exhibit remains the real test.
The bloodstained shirt has to survive every stage. It must be recognised at the scene, documented before movement, packed without contamination, sealed properly, recorded in custody, dispatched with the right papers, examined by a competent division, reported with limits and finally tested in court. If any link fails, forensic expansion becomes weaker than it sounds.
The question, then, is not whether India can buy more machines or announce more laboratories. It is whether the system can make the full journey timely and dependable, from the first record at the crime scene to the questions asked in court.
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