LexLALLU MANJHI AND ANR. versus STATE OF JHARKHAND
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- LALLU MANJHI AND ANR. v. STATE OF JHARKHAND JANUARY 7, 2003 [R.C. LAHOTI AND BRIJESH KUMAR, JJ.] Penal Code, 1860-Ss. 147 and 3021149-Murder-Prosecutiorr-Sole eye witness-Improvement of his testimony during trial-Non-corroboration A B by medical evidence-Infirmities in investigation-Conviction by courts below- C On appeal, held-Conviction not justified on the basis of evidence available. Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973-8.313-Statement of accused- Recording of-Role of trial court-Held, it is obligatory on the part of trial court to examine the accused for the purpose of enabling him to personally explain the circumstances appearing against him-In absence of such D opportunity prosecution evidence cannot be relied on for conviction. Criminal Trial: Sole witness-Reliability on-Held, in case of neither wholly reliable nor wholly unreliable sole witness, corroboration in material particulars by E reliable testimony, direct or circumstantial, required-Evidence- Corroboration. 9 accused out of I 0, including the appellants, were tried for offences u/ss 148 and 302 r/w 149 IPC. Prosecution case was that when PW9 and his elder brother were ploughing the field, all the to accused reached there F and assaulted them. PW9 ran away to save his life crying for help, but no one came to their rescue. After sometime when he reached the place of occurrence he found his brother dead. The evidence of PW9, the sole eye witness, during the trial was in departure from his FIR version and police statement. PW9 admitted that there was a dispute between them and the G accused, regarding the land which he and the deceased were ploughing. He produced order passed in proceedings u/s 145 Cr.P.C. whereby they were declared to be in possession of the property in dispute. For this, in his cross examination it was suggested that the order was ex parte passed when the accused were in jail regarding that incident. He stated that he H 2 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2003] ~ S.C.R. A was not in a position to produce any document showing possession or entitlement to the possession over the land. During investigation, site plan of occurrence was not prepared; samples of blood stained earth were not sent for chemical examination, no efforts were made to recover the weapon of offence; no witness of the B locality was examined. Village Patwari and chowkidar were not examined. c During trial, the statement u/s 313 was summed up into 5 questions. Trial Court convicted accused 1 to 4 and 9 u/ss 148 and 302/149 IPC and accused 5 to 8 u/s 147. Conviction was confirmed by High Court. Hence the appeal. Allowing the appeal, the Court HELD: 1.1. The Law of Evidence does not require any particular number of witness to be examined in proof of a given fact. However, faced with the testimony of a single witness, the Court may classify the oral D testimony into three categories, namely (i) wholly reliable, (ii) wholly unreliable and (iii) neither wholly reliable nor wholly unreliable. In the first two categories there may be no difficulty in accepting or discarding the testimony of the single witness. The difficulty arises in the third category of cases. The Court ha~ to be circumspect and has to look for E corroboration in material particulars by reliable testimony, direct or circumstantial, before acting upon testimony of a single witness. Vadivelu Thevan etc. v. State of Madras, AIR (1957) SC 614, referred to. (7'."D-F) 1.2. The Court can neither place implicit reliance on nor totally F discard the testimony of PW9 as it can neither be called wholly reliable nor wholly unreliable. He is a witness who could have been naturally present with his brother while ploughing the field. However, his testimony appears to have been substantially improved at the trial than what it was to begin with when the First Information Report of the incident was G lodged. So far as the assault on the deceased is concerned, there is so much of chaff collected by him in his deposition that it becomes very difficult, almost impossible, to sift the grains of truth from out of the mass of chaff of falsehood and exaggerations. (7-G; 8-:-CJ 2. Investigation in the case has been very defective. The Investigating H Officer did not prepare any site plan of the place of occurrence. Samples + .. • .. ' _.l D ..a.L, LALLU MANJHI v. STATE OF JHARKHAND 3 of blood stained earth were not sent for chemical examination. No effort A seem
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