# [1974] 3 S.C.R. 725 - **Citation:** [1974] 3 S.C.R. 725 - **Court:** Supreme Court of India - **Decided:** 1974-03-21 - **Source:** https://unisonlegal.in/judgment/supreme-court-of-india/1974-3-s-c-r-725-6066 - **Pages:** 9 ## Headnote A B c D. E F G H 725 STATE OF PUNJAB V, HARi SINGH & ANR. March 21, 1974 [M. Ji. BEG AND R. S. SAllKARIA, JI.] Indian Peno/ Code-S.302, 307 read wltli S. 34~M11rder-Whborated by other facts and cin:umstanaa. . Allowina the appeal, . llEu> :-(I) lt is a principle, common to all criminal appeala by special lea.., that this Court will refrain fmm substitu~ ib own views about the appreciation of "evidence if the judgment of the Hish Court is bued on one of two altematiW> views each of which was reuooably cpcn to the Hish Coun to accept, If however, the High Court's approach is vitiated by eome baalcally erroneous assumptions, or it adopts reuoning which, QD the face of it, is umound, it may become the duty of ·this Court, to prevent a miscarriage of justice and to interfere with an order ·wh~ther it be of conviction or of acquittal. [729F) (2) In the present case, the trial court had accepted the testimony of 3 oye witnesses, dcspi.te the fact that they· are relations of the victims, It has been l'lll'Oltedly held by this Coun that the more fact that witness is related to the victim could not be a good enoueh ground for rejecting his testimony althouah it mly be a ground for scrutinizing his evidence more ctitically and carefully where facts ·and circuμlStances disclase that only relations have been produced and othei-s, presumably independent witneeses, who were available, were not produced. [729 HJ The ordinary presumption is that a witness speaking under an oath ls trothfut unless and until he is shown to be unreliable or untruthful. In any particular respect, witnesses· solemnly deposing on oath in the witness boX during a- trial upon a grave charge of murder, must be presumed to act with n full seme ·of responsibility of the consequences of what they state. It may be that what they say is so very unlikely Of' unreasonable that it is safer not to act ,upon it or even to disbelieve them. [730 ~ In the present !'"'e, the evidence of Z who boc~ IJll"'!'lSborated by other facts and cin:umstanaa. . Allowina the appeal, . llEu> :-(I) lt is a principle, common to all criminal appeala by special lea.., that this Court will refrain fmm substitu~ ib own views about the appreciation of "evidence if the judgment of the Hish Court is bued on one of two altematiW> views each of which was reuooably cpcn to the Hish Coun to accept, If however, the High Court's approach is vitiated by eome baalcally erroneous assumptions, or it adopts reuoning which, QD the face of it, is umound, it may become the duty of ·this Court, to prevent a miscarriage of justice and to interfere with an order ·wh~ther it be of conviction or of acquittal. [729F) (2) In the present case, the trial court had accepted the testimony of 3 oye witnesses, dcspi.te the fact that they· are relations of the victims, It has been l'lll'Oltedly held by this Coun that the more fact that witness is related to the victim could not be a good enoueh ground for rejecting his testimony althouah it mly be a ground for scrutinizing his evidence more ctitically and carefully where facts ·and circuμlStances disclase that only relations have been produced and othei-s, presumably independent witneeses, who were available, were not produced. [729 HJ The ordinary presumption is that a witness speaking under an oath ls trothfut unless and until he is shown to be unreliable or untruthful. In any particular respect, witnesses· solemnly deposing on oath in the witness boX during a- trial upon a grave charge of murder, must be presumed to act with n full seme ·of responsibility of the consequences of what they state. It may be that what they say is so very unlikely Of' unreasonable that it is safer not to act ,upon it or even to disbelieve them. [730 ~ In the present !'"'e, the evidence of Z who boc~ IJll"'!'lS E F t .-... G H A B c D E F G H PUNJAB 1'. HARI SINGH (Beg, /.) 729 cient to explain this omission. After relying upon the observations of this Court ·;n Sarwan Singh Rattan Singh Vs. State of Punjab(') that . the prci;ecution must traverse the whole gap between "what may be true" and "what must be true" before a conviction could be recorded in a crimipal ~ the High Court had given the respondents the benefit of doubt and acquitted them. The Trial Court, on the other hand, which had the additional advantage of seeing the witnes$es depose in the witness box, was impressed by the evidence of the three' alleged eye witnesses and had convicted the respondents. It bad not relied upon the alleged recoveries by .Hardit Singh, SuMnspector, P.W.8, of a kirpan on 28th June, 1969, from a straw-bin at ·a tube well at the instance of Hari Singh and a gandasa on the roof of a tubewell at the instance of Gian "Singh. Both the weapons were proved tCl be stained with human blood. As the recovery was shown to have taken place 4 days after the arrest of the respondents .the Trial Court thought that it must have resulted from the nse of 3rd degree methods during the interrogation of the accused. The Trial ·Court had also considered it unsafe tQ rely upon the sole testimony tf.. the Investigating Officer on this question when other witnesses of the recovery were not produced for some unexplained reason. The Trial C-Ourt, had, however, relied upon the circumstance that the respc,11dents could not be found when searched in their village and could only be arrested several days later. The question raised before us is : should we, even if we do not ootirely agree with the reasouing of the High Court, substitute our own views and reverse an order of acquittal by it ? It is enough to refer to the State of Madras Vs. A. V with a blanket or a cloth, so as to disable him from seeing them, before· · attacking him. H we accept this part of th.e evidence of Zora Singh. as we think we must, since it is so strongly ·corroborated by the medical evidence and there is nothing on record which conflicts with this inference, it becQmes evident that be musi have shouted for help. If thai be so, it is difficult to understand why Surjit Singh and Bachan Singh would. not go to his rescue as they naturally would on hearing · shouts even if they were at some distance. We think that, judging from the number of injuries on the two victims, the incident must have lasted · long enoguh to enable Surjit Singh, P.W. 4, and Bachan Singh, P.W. · 5, to rush :towards the scene of occurrence and to see and _recognise· aneast the escaping assailants. It is possible that they may have exaggerated in stating that they actually saw the attack on both the victims. But, that would itot be enough to discard the whole of their testimony on the ground that they were not likely to be present at their field nearby at the time of the attack. There is no evidence to suggest that they were elsewl)ere at the time. Indeed, the fact that t_hey ai:ang\ld for the transport of the victims to a hospital' 10 Ludhmna and took them there before day-break shows that th~y were there to be able to do all this. We do not think that the reasons given for suspecting their presence near enough from the tubewell, at their sqgarcane field, are strong enough to make it incredible that they should come to the help of the two atta.:ked persons and to sec· at least the escaping assailants out of whom they recognised two. As human testimony, resulting from widely different powers of observation and 4'scription, is necessarily faulty and even truthful Witl!eSSes.not infrequently exaggerate or imagine or tell half truths the Courts must try to extract' and separate the hard core of..truth from the whole evidence. This is what is meant by the proverbial saying 732 SUPREME CQURT .REPORTS [l.974] 3 S.C.R. that Courts must separate ."the chaff from the grain" .. lf, after consi· d<:ring the· who~ ~ass of evidence, a residue. of acceptable truth . is esuious11«l by .the prosecuuon beyond. any reasonable doubt the Courts are hound to give effect to the result flowing from it and not throw it overboard on purely hypothetical and conjectural grounds. In so far as the grounds given for rejecting the evidence of Zora Singh appear to us lo be patc_ntly unreasonable and highly conjectural, we think .that th~. case before us calls. for interference by this Court.. That evidence, as we have already pointed .out, is corroborated by medical evideru;c as well as by the statements of Surjit Singh and Bachan Singh. Hence, although, the statements of Bachan Singh and Surjit Singh, taken by themselves, may not have been enough to warrant the conviction of the respondents, yet, when the evidence of Zora Singh, strongly corroborated by medical ~vidcnce is there, we think that the statements of Surjit Singh & Bachan Singh could be used to support the conclusion thus reached without going to the extent of holding that Surjit Singh and Bachan Singh must be wholly believed before their evidence could serve any useful purpose at all as the High Court seems to have erroneously thought. Indeed, it is very difficult to find a witness whose evidence is so flawless that it has to be wholly, completely and, unqualifiedly accepted. We think that the High Court had, without saying so, ignored the principle repeatedly laid down by this Court in appraising evidence, that Courts do not, in this country, act on the maxim : "fa/sus i11 uoo fa/sus ill omnibus". In cciisidering the effect of each allegation proved to be incorrect or the likelihood of its being true or untrue, we have to view it in the li~t of a whole setting or concatenation of facts in each particular case. There may be reasons for doubting the worth af the evidence of recovery from the respondents, but, that docs not mean that t!le evidence given !1y Hardit Singh, S.L, P.W.8, relating to recoveries, is necessarily false so that the investigation itself is tainted. Similarly, the mere fact that, after the lodging of the F.I.R., the necessary precaution of sending the special report to a Magistrate speedily was not shown by the prosecution to have been obscrve4 does not mean that the whole prosecution case is false or unacceptable. On the other hand, the fact that the F.l.R. discloses only offences punishable under Sections 307 and 326 I.P.C. indicates that it must have been lodged before 6. a.m. In any event, before the Inquest report on the morning of 19-6-1969, the police had before it the prosecution version contained in the F.l.R. to which a reference is made in the Inquest report. The statements of Bachan Singh~ and Surjit Singh were also recorded before that. Therefore, the alleged suspected delay in the lodging of the F. I. R. or in sending a special report to a Magistrate do not, on the facts of this case, .indicate an attempt to conspire and fabricate. Indeed, if this was so, as already observed, one would have expected to find the names of Milkiat Singh and. Dalip Singh also in the F.I.R. instead of a description given of· the unidentified youngmen which did not fit these two acquitted accused persons who were. therefore, given the benefit of doubt. This feature of the evidence indicates that the names of these two accused were introduced in the ease ouly after Zora Singh had regained consciousness and revealed them as the proA B c D E F G H c PUNJAB V. HARi SINGH (Beg, /.) 73 3 secution alleged. Hence, it is. likely that the F.I.R. must have been made soon enough to contain the earliest version before Zora Singh 's version could get into it after he regained consciouness. We think that the High Court had missed the core of truth in the case and had unjustifiably rejected · thi; prosecution case which was strong enough on the statement of Zora Singh alone corroborated by medical evidence. ILl!ad, we think, 111ade the error of throwing away the prosecution case, without attempting to separate the chaff from the grain on the wrong ass1111\1>tion. that the two were inseparable here. We, therefore, set aside the order of acquittal by the High Court and convict the respondents for the offences with which they were charged. As, however; the occurrence took place several years ago, we refrain from aw~ a death sentence in this case. We sentence both llari Siqgh respondent u/s 302 I.P.C. and Gian Singh respondent sons of Arjan Singh to life imprisonment under Sections 302/34 I.P.C. We also sentence each of them to six years rigorous imprisonment and to pay a fine of Rs. 2,000/" each, and, in default of payment of linel. to rigotous imprisonment for a further period of two years under ~ tions 307/34 I.P.C. The seiltenees awarded shall run concurrently. s.c. Appeal Allowed.