SHRANAPPA MUTYAPPA HALKE versus ST A TE OF MAHARASHTRA

Citation: [1964] 4 S.C.R. 589 · Decided: 27-08-1963 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: S.K. DAS · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed

Cited by 1 judgment(s) · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

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4 S.C.R. 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
589 
which is kept as a general Register for gazetted servants 
in the State. Therefore, we think there is some substance 
in the contention made by the learned Attorney-General 
that the harsh criticism made by the High Court against 
appellant No. 1 is not fully justified. 
In th.e resnlt, the appeals are allowed, the order passed 
by the High Court is set aside and the writ petition filed 
by the respondent is dismissed with costs throughout, There 
will be one set of hearing fees in both the appeals filed 
by the two appellants. 
Appeals allowed. 
SHRANAPPA MUTYAPPA HALKE 
v. 
ST A TE OF MAHARASHTRA 
(and connected appeals) 
(S. K. DAs, AcTING C.J., M. HmAYATULLAH AND K. C. DAs 
GUPTA, JJ.) 
Criniinal 
Trial-Evidence 
of 
tvitness 
before 
con1;nztt1ng 
court--Resiled iH Sessions Court-}Vhether corroboration required 
-Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (Act 5 of 1898), s. 288. 
1'he appellants were conYicted by the t-Iigh Court for 
co1n-
mi.tti11ci three 1nur<lers. In this case the liigh Court considered the 
testin1ony of one HPar\Vati'', given by her in the con1mitting court. 
She was an eye witness of the occurrence according to her testi-
mony in the com1nitting court. 
In the sessions court she resiled 
frorn_ her previous staten1ent before the committing l\.1agistrate and 
made a definite staten1ent that she had not seen the occurrence. 
lier evidence before the con1mitting court was tendered as evidence 
under s. 288 Criminal Procedure Code in the court of sessions. 
Hr:r evidence before the con1mitting court \Vas not corroborated in 
respect of p!rticipation in the occurrence by four appellants. The 
I-Iigh Court convicted the appellants on the basis of the state1nent 
made by Par\.vati before the committing Magistrate on the ground 
that it was substantive evidence \.Vhich did not require any corrobo-
ration. 
Held, that the evidence of a \Vitness tendered under s. 288 
of the Code of Cri1ninal Procedure before the Sessions Court is 
substantive evidence. 
In law such evidence is not required to be 
corroborated. 
But where a person has made t\vo 
contradictory 
statements on oath it is ordinarily unsafe to rely implicitly on he~ 
1963 
The University 
of Mysore and 
Anr. 
v. 
C. D. Govinda 
Rao and 
Anr. 
Gaiendr.gad-
kar f. 
1%3 
August 27 
1963 
Shranappa 
Mutyappa 
Halkc 
v. 
State of 
Maharashtra 
Das Gupta/. 
590 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
[1964) 
evidence and the judge, before he accepts one or the other of the 
state1nents as true, must be satisfied that this is so. For such 
satisfaction it \Vill ordinarily be necessary for the evidence to be sup-
ported by extrinsic evidence not only as to the occurrence in gene~ 
ral but also about the participation o.f the accused in particular. 
But in a case where even \Vithout any extrinsic evidence the judge 
is satisfied about the truth of one of the statements, his duty will 
be to rely on such evid::nce and act accordingly. 
Rhuboni Sahu v. The King, A.LR. 1949 P.C. 257, relied cm. 
On the facts of this case, it was held that \vithout corro.ba--
ration fro1n extrinsic evidence, the High Court \Vas not justified 
in acting on the evidence of the only eye \vitness Par\vati, given in 
the con11nitting court. 
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Criminal Appeals 
Nos. 75, 100 and 101 of 1963. 
Appeals from the judgment and order dated February 
27, 28, 1963 of the Bombay High Court in Criminal Appeal 
No. 1077 of 1962. 
S. G. PatuA:irdhan and A. G. Ratnaparkhi, for the ap-
pellant (in Cr. A. No. 75 of 1963). 
B. B. Tawakley, Harbans Singh and A. G. Ratnapar-
khi, for the appellants (in Cr. A. Nos. 100 and 101 of 
1963). 
D. R. Prem, K. L. Hathi and B. R. G. K. Achar, for 
R. H. Dhebar, for the respondents. 
August 27, 1963. The Judgment of the Court was de-
livered by 
DAs GuPTA J.-On June 11, 1961 at 5 p.m. the road in 
front of the Temple of Shri Maruti in the village of Chin-
chpur of Taluk Sholapur was the scene of a terrible tra-
gedy. Three persons-Revansidappa, and his two maternal 
uncles, Yellappa and Maruti were done to death there in a 
most gruesome manner. Revansidappa's neck was severed 
from the body, except for a piece of skin and one of his 
legs was chopped off. The spinal cord and vertebra of 
Yellappa were cut off. The jaw, vertebra, tongue and a 
major part of the neck of Manni were cut off. 
The first information that reached the police station of 
this tragedy was by a letter of the village po

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