Evidence Of Close Relatives Of Victim Cannot Automatically Be Discarded By Levelling Them As Interested Witness: Madhya Pradesh HC
The Madhya Pradesh High Court observed that evidence of close relatives of victims cannot automatically be discarded by levelling them as an interested witness.
The Court held thus while noting that as per the human tendency, a close relative would put forth the actual story of the incident rather than hide the actual culprit and foist an innocent person.
The Court was considering the criminal appeal filed by the accused who was convicted for the offence under Section 326 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
The bench of Justice Prem Narayan Singh observed, “…in many of the criminal cases, it is often seen that the offence is witnessed by close relatives of the victim, whose presence on the spot of incident would be natural and the evidence of such witness cannot automatically be discarded by leveling them as interested witness.”
Brief Facts-
It is the case of the prosecution that Rahul's wife informed him of a quarrel between his brother and sister-in-law. Upon entering Nitin's room, Rahul found Nitin assaulting his daughter with a knife. When Rahul intervened, Nitin also attacked him, causing injuries. Rahul filed a complaint, leading to Nitin's arrest and trial. The Court convicted Nitin under IPC Section 326, acquitting him of charges under Sections 307 and 506.
The Court noted that the law is well settled that the testimony of hostile witnesses is also of importance if they are supporting the prosecution case to some extent.
The Court mentioned the decision of the Supreme Court in Radha Mohan Singh alias Lal Saheb and Others vs. State of U.P.[2006 (2) SCC 450], and quoted, “.....It is well settled that the evidence of a prosecution witness cannot be rejected in toto merely because the prosecution chose to treat him as hostile and cross-examined him. The evidence of such witness cannot be treated as effaced or washed off the record altogether but the same can be accepted to the extent his version is found to be dependable on careful scrutiny thereof....".
On the point of relatedness and interestedness of the witnesses, the Court relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in Laltu Ghosh vs. State of West Bengal AIR 2019 SC 1058 and quoted, " This Court has elucidated the difference between ‘interested’ and ‘related’ witnesses in a plethora of cases, stating that a witness may be called interested only when he or she derives some benefit from the result of a litigation, which in the context of a criminal case would mean that the witness has a direct or indirect interest in seeing the accused punished due to prior enmity or other reasons, and thus has a motive to falsely implicate the accused".
The Court said that the trial Court has well considered the material available on record, hence, no infirmity is found in the impugned order of conviction passed by the trial Court.
Accordingly, the Court upheld the conviction and partly allowed the Criminal Appeal.
Cause Title: Nitin Mewate v. State of Madhya Pradesh
Appearance:
Appellant: Adv. Amit Yadav
Respondent: GA G. Rawat
