2004 Supreme(MP) 774

High Court Of Madhya Pradesh
S. S. JHA, A. K. GOHIL
GOVIND - Appellant
Versus
STATE OF M.P., - Respondents
Criminal Appeal 58 Of 1995
Decided On : 10/07/2004

Headnote:(i) Indian Penal Code, 1860 - Sec-tion 302 - Appellant convicted under where other seven accused were acquit-ted of charge u/ss. 302, 147, 148/149, IPC - Eight accused persons armed with lathis and farsas came on spot at about 9 AM when complainant PW 1, eye- witness, PW 2 and deceased and others were digging foundation on a plot subject matter of dispute - Accused started assaulting prosecution party - Appellant climbed roof of his house and fired a shot with mouser gun which hit deceased who died on spot - PW 1 and PW 2 though deposed that firstly accused had assaul-ted deceased with lathis and farsa and then appellant fired gun shot on decea-sed but no injury caused by farsa or lathis was found on body during post-mortem - Principle of falsas in uno, falsus in omnibus had no application in India and evidence of witness could only be rejected if separation of grain from chaff was not possible - Evidence of two eyewitnesses whose presence was well established was fully corroborated by medical evidence as far gun shot injury caused by appe-llant and could not be disbelieved merely that witnesses assigned role to other accused also - Witnesses could not be disbelieved merely because they were related to deceased - Some lapse in investigation could not be a ground to acquit an accused in presence of sufficient ocular and medical evidence - Conviction called for no interference.

       (ii) CRIMINAL TRIAL - Principle of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus - Not applicable in India - Duty of Court is not to discredit entire evidence but is to separate the grain from chaff.

       Held: Therefore, as held by the Apex Court it is clear that the aforesaid princi-ples is not applicable in India and the duty of the Court is not to discredit the entire evidence but is to separate the grain from chaff because in every case one hardly comes across a witness whose evidence does not contain a grain of un-truth or at any rate exaggeration, embroi-deries or embellishment. Evidence can only be rejected if the separation of grain from chaff cannot be done. Where chaff can be separated from grain it would be open to the Court to convict an accused notwithstanding the fact that evidence has been found to be deficient to prove the guilt of other accused persons. There-fore the evidence in this case has to be decided on the aforesaid principle laid down by the Supreme Court. (Para 19)

       As we have already examined here-in-above the principle of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus is not applicable in this country and therefore we have to ana-lyse the evidence of witnesses in the

       light of the aforesaid principle because when it is not possible to separate the chaff from the grain then only the evi-dence of witnesses has to be discredited and benefit has to be given to the accused but in this case we find that so far as the involvement of the appellant Govind in the commission of crime is concerned sufficient material is available on record. P.W. 1 Kamlesh and P.W. 2 Girraj who were present on spot at the time of commission of crime have stated that the Govind came on spot along with Lathi and thereafter rushed and reached on his roof and from there fired from his mouser at Ramnivas hitting his head above the right ear. This evidence of aforesaid two eyewitnesses is fully corroborated by medical evidence of P.W. 4 Dr. S.K. Gupta. Therefore, merely on the ground that these eyewitnesses have assigned role to other co-accused persons for causing injury by Farsa and Lathi have not been found proved, the whole evidence of P.W. 1 and P.W. 2 cannot be discredited and appellant Govind cannot be acquitted. (Para 20)

       (iii) CRIMINAL TRIAL - Interested witness - Relationship is not a factor to doubt credibility of a witness - Court has to adopt a careful approach and analyse evidence to find out if it was cogent and credible. (Para 22)

       (iv) Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 - Section 378 - Appeal against acquit-tal - Where trial Court has taken a view which is reasonable, acquittal can not be interfered - When two views are possi-ble from same set of evidence, view taken by trial Court could not be reversed. (Para 31)

       Result : Appeals dismissed.