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SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
M.H. BEG AND R.S. SARKARIA, JJ.
The State of Punjab, Appellant
Versus
Hari Singh and another, Respondents.
Criminal Appeal No. 213 of 1970, D/- 21-3-1974.
Held, that Court’s power of interference under Art. 136 of the Constitution with judgments of acquittal is not exercised on principles which are different from those adopted by it in dealing with conviction. It is a principle, common to all criminal appeals by special leave, that this court will refrain from substituting its own views about the appreciation of evidence if the judgment of the High Court is based on one of the two alternative views each of which are reasonably open to the High Court to accept. If however, the High Court's approach is vitiated by some basically erroneous apparent assumption or it adopts reasoning, which on the face of it, is unsound, it may become the duty of this Court, to prevent a miscarriage of justice, to interfere with an order whether it be of conviction or of acquittal. (1958 S.C.R. 580 Ref.) (Para 9)
Cri. P. Code (Act V of 1898) Section 367 - Appreciation of evidence - Duty of the Court.
Held, that as human testimony, resulting from widely different powers of observation and description, is necessarily faulty and even truthful witnesses 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 that court must separate "the chaff from the grain". If, after considering the whole mass of evidence, a residue of acceptable truth is established by the prosecution beyond any reasonable doubt, the courts are bound to give effect to the result flowing from it and not throw over board on purely hypothetical and conjectural grounds. (Para 16)
Criminal Trial - Appreciation of the evidence - statement under oath - Presumption under law - Burden of proof - witnesses giving exaggerated version - whether their entire testimony be discarded.
Held, that the ordinary presumption is that a witness speaking under an oath is truthful unless and until he is shown to be untruthful or unreliable in any particular respect. The High Court, in reversing this approach, seems to have assumed that witnesses are untruthful unless it is proved that they are telling the truth. Witnesses, solemnly deposing on oath in the witness box during a trial upon a grave charge of murder, must be presumed to act with a full sense of responsibility of the consequences of what they state. If may be that what they say is so very unlikely or unnatural or unreasonable that it is safer not to act upon it or even to disbelieve them. (Para 12)
Judgment
BEG, J.:- The State of Punjab has obtained special leave to appeal against the judgment of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, acquitting the two respondents from charges under Sections 302 and 302/34, Indian Penal Code. and under section 307/34 Indian Code. The trial Court had convicted the respondents under each of these two sections and sentenced Hari Singh to death under Section 302, Indian Penal Code and Gain Singh to life imprisonment under Sections 302/34, Indian Penal Code, and it had sentenced both to six years rigorous imprisonment and to pay a fine of Rupees 2,000/- and indefault of payment of fine, to undergo further rigorous imprisonment for two years under Sections 307/34, Indian Penal Code.
2. The occurrence which gave rise to the prosecution of the two respondents together with two others, Milkiat Singh and Dalip Singh, who were acquitted by the Trial Court, took place during the night between 18th and 19th June, 1969. The victims, Gian Singh, deceased, and his nephew. Zora Singh, P.W. 3, cultivated lands jointly with Bachan Singh, P. W. 5, his son Mukhtiral Singh, his two brothers Gian Singh and Sarwan Singh, and, Surjit Singh, P. W. 4, and Jagit Singh, the brothers of Zora Singh and sons of Sarwan Singh. All of them also lived together in village Dhandri Kalan. The respondents and the acquitted accused persons are brothers who also lived in village Dhandri Kalan in District Ludhina. It is said that there had been a fight between Hari Singh, respondent, and Gian Singh deceased in 1968 which had been settled by the Panchayat. In 1969, sometime before the occurrence, another incident is said to have taken place. Jagjit Singh and Mukhtiar Singh, by show of force, were said to have carried away some toori in a cart to their house against the wishes of Hari Singh, respondent, and another person in his company. Undoubtedly, the motive disclosed was not strong enough for a murderous assualt of a rather brutal kind on Gian Singh and Zora Singh. This, however is immaterial if the alleged eye-witnesses of the occurrence could be relied upon to establish the prosecution case. The whole question before the Courts was whether the three alleged eye witnesses. Zora Singh, P. W. 3, and Surjit Singh, P. W. 4, and Bachan Singh, P. W. 5, who are related to each other and the victims, as stated above could be relied upon, when corroborated by other facts and circumstances which may appear in the case, to sustain the conviction.
3. The prosecution case was that Gian Singh and Zora Singh had gone to their field for watering their sugar-cane crop in it on the evening of 18th June. 1969. At about 9. p.m. Bachan Singh, P. W. 5, and Surjit Singh, P. W. 4, are said to have carried the meals for Gian Singh and Zora Singh, who were at their field situated about "100 karams (nearly 200 paces) away from their tube well, which was, as is usual, lit up by electric light. After that, Gian Singh and Zora Sing went to sleep a few feet from each other at their tube well while Bachan Singh and Surjit Singh and said to have stayed on at the sugarcane field nearby. At about mid-night, Zora Singh is said to have got up to urinate, and to have just laid himself down on his cot after urinating when he saw the respondents and Milkiat Singh and Dalip Singh arrive with their weapons. Hari Singh is said to have struck his kirpan on the neck of Gian Singh, deceased, and Milkiat Singh is said to have struck Zora Singh on the right arm with his Gandasa, whereupon Zora Singh raised an alarm. All the four assailants then gave blows to the deceased and Zora Singh who had cried out: "Marditta- Marditta . Bachan Singh, P.W. 5, and Surjit Singh, P. W. 4, rushed to their aid and alleged having seen the attack and the assailants running away. They found Zora Singh unconscious when they came near him. Gian Singh and Zora Singh were removed to a Hospital in Ludhina, where Gian Singh died at 5.45 a.m. The condition of Gian Singh, which was not such as to en
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