In
Kanhaiya Lal & Ors. Vs. State of Rajasthan, Criminal Appeal No. 1108 of 2006,
(date of decision 22.04.2013), the Hon’ble Supreme Court discussed the issue of
interested witness and held that:
“When relatives, who are alleged to be
interested witnesses, are cited by the prosecution, it is the obligation of the
court to scrutinize their evidence with care, caution and circumspection.”
[Para 17]
The
Court discussed following case laws:
‘Hari
Obula Reddy and others v. The State of Andhra Pradesh’ (1981) 3 SCC 675, in
which a three-Judge Bench opined that
“it
cannot be laid down as an invariable rule that interested evidence can never
form the basis of conviction unless corroborated to a material extent in material
particulars by independent evidence. All that is necessary is that the evidence
of the interested witnesses should be subjected to careful scrutiny and
accepted with caution. If on such scrutiny, the interested testimony is found
to be intrinsically reliable or inherently probable, it may, by itself, be
sufficient, in the circumstances of the particular case, to base a conviction
thereon.”
‘Kartik
Malhar v. State of Bihar’ (1996) 1 SCC 614, the Court stated that:
A
close relative who is a natural witness cannot be regarded as an interested
witness, for the term “interested” postulates that the witness must have some
interest in having the accused, somehow or the other, convicted for some animus
or for some other reason.
The
Court noted the following points in this case to believe on close relative’s
evidence:
(i) In
the case at hand, the witnesses have lost their father, husband and a relative.
There is no earthly reason to categorise them as interested witnesses who would
nurture an animus to see that the accused persons are convicted, though they
are not involved in the crime. On the contrary, they would like that the real
culprits are prosecuted and convicted. That is the normal phenomena of human
nature and that is the expected human conduct and we do not perceive that these
witnesses harboured any ill motive against the accused persons, but have deposed
as witnesses to the brutal incident. [Para 20]
(ii)
In the case at hand, the entire occurrence took place in and around the house
of Purshottam. Five people had been done to death. In such a circumstance, it
is totally unexpected that other villagers would come forward to give their statements
and depose in the court.
(iii)
On a careful perusal of the evidence of witnesses, we do not find any reason to
differ with the said evaluation solely on the ground that they are related to
the deceased persons or that they could not have seen the occurrence.
(iv)
In a case of this nature, it is the relatives who would come forward to depose
against the real culprits and would not like to falsely implicate others. They
have witnessed the brutish crime committed and there is nothing on record to
discard their testimony as untrustworthy.
(v) Nothing
has been elicited in the cross-examination to record a finding that the
evidence is improbable or suspicious and deserves to be rejected.
(vi)
The witnesses have no motive to falsely implicate the accused and, that apart,
their testimony have withstood the rigorous cross-examination in material particulars
and received corroboration from the evidence of the doctor.
(vii)
It is almost well high impossible to perceive that the witnesses have any
animosity for some reason to see that the accused persons are convicted. Their
family members have been done to death in ghastly manner, and in these
circumstances, it cannot be thought of that they would leave the real culprits
and implicate the accused persons.