Forensic Science and Physical Evidence Questions and Answers

Answer: B

A Magistrate of the first class may pass imprisonment for up to three years.

Under Section 29(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, a Judicial Magistrate of the first class may pass a sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or a fine (now up to ten thousand rupees), or both.

One year is the limit for a Magistrate of the second class (Section 29(3)). Seven years is the limit for a Chief Judicial Magistrate (Section 29(1)), and five years is not a limit attached to any magisterial court in the Code.

Answer: D

The provision is Section 161 (2).

Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 deals with the examination of witnesses by the police. Sub-section (1) empowers the investigating officer to examine orally any person supposed to be acquainted with the facts. Sub-section (2) says that person is bound to answer truly all questions, other than questions the answers to which would have a tendency to expose him to a criminal charge or to a penalty or forfeiture. This applies the protection against self-incrimination of Article 20(3).

Section 161 (1) is the power to examine, not the protection. Section 172 deals with the police case diary, and Section 171 with complainants and witnesses not being required to accompany the police.

Answer: C

The office was shifted to Shimla.

The office of the Government Handwriting Expert, the forerunner of today's Government Examiner of Questioned Documents (GEQD), was set up in Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1904. In 1906 it moved to Shimla, then the summer capital of British India, and Shimla remains the seat of a GEQD laboratory today.

Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai were not where the office moved in 1906.

Answer: A

The first Chemical Examiner's Laboratory was established in 1849.

The Chemical Examiner's Laboratory at Madras, set up in 1849, was the first forensic science laboratory in India. It examined poisons and stains in criminal cases. Similar Chemical Examiner's laboratories were later opened in Calcutta (1853), Agra (1864) and Bombay (1870).

The other years do not match: 1839 is earlier than any such laboratory in India, and 1851 and 1869 are not the founding date of the Madras laboratory.

Answer: C

The fundamental principle of photogrammetry is triangulation.

Each photograph gives a bundle of lines of sight from the camera position to points in the scene. With photographs taken from two or more known positions, the lines of sight to the same point can be intersected, fixing its position in three dimensions. This is triangulation, the same geometry used in surveying.

Resection and intersection are individual steps within this process (finding the camera position, then the object points), so they are parts of the method rather than its fundamental principle. Interference is a wave phenomenon used in interferometry, not in photogrammetry.

Answer: D

The negative-positive process was invented by William Henry Fox Talbot.

Talbot's calotype, patented in 1841, produced a paper negative from which any number of positive prints could be made. This negative-positive principle became the basis of photography for over 150 years.

Louis Daguerre's daguerreotype (1839) produced a single direct positive on a silvered plate that could not be copied. Ibn al-Haytham (Al-Haitham) and Roger Bacon described the camera obscura centuries earlier, but neither made photographs.

Answer: A

The opening is the aperture.

The aperture is the adjustable opening in the lens diaphragm through which light passes to the film or sensor. Its size is given by the f-number: a smaller f-number means a wider opening and more light. It also controls depth of field.

The shutter controls how long the light falls on the sensor, not the size of the opening. Exposure is the total light received, which depends on both aperture and shutter speed, and depth of field is the range of distances in sharp focus.

Answer: D

The keyed answer is Trojan.

A rootkit is malicious software that hides itself and other malware deep in the system, often by subverting the operating system, so that an attacker keeps privileged access. It gets in by disguise or deception rather than by copying itself, which is why it is classed with Trojans in many forensic and security texts.

A virus attaches itself to other files and replicates, which a rootkit does not do. A denial-of-service attack floods a system to make it unavailable, and a logic bomb is code that triggers on a condition such as a date; neither describes the concealment that defines a rootkit.

Answer: A

The forensic image formats are (a), (b) and (c) only.

• E01 (printed EO1) is the EnCase Evidence File format, the most widely used compressed image format with built-in hashes.
• AD1 is AccessData's custom content (logical) image format from FTK Imager.
• 001 (printed OO1) is the extension of the first segment of a split raw (dd) image.

FI1 is not an extension used for forensic images, so every option including (d) is wrong.

Answer: B

Statement I is true but Statement II is false.

The fundamental frequency of the voice depends on the vibrating mass and the tension of the vocal folds more than on their length (Statement I). This is why lengthening the folds raises the pitch: stretching them makes them thinner (less mass per unit length) and more tense, both of which increase the frequency of vibration.

Statement II gets the first part right, that lengthening makes the folds less massive and more tense, but draws the wrong conclusion. Those changes make the fundamental frequency rise, not fall. So the options calling Statement II true, or Statement I false, are wrong.