Habib vs. State of Uttar Pradesh, Criminal Appeal No. 911 of 2007
(Decided on 01.05.2013)
The Court held that:
“It is settled legal
position that if there is direct trustworthy evidence of witnesses as to the
commission of offence, motive part loses its significance. Therefore, if the
genesis of the occurrence is proved, the ocular testimony of the witnesses could
not be discarded only by the reason of the absence of motive, if otherwise the
evidence is worthy of reliance.” [Para 6]
The court referred following case laws on this point:
Sheo Shankar Singh v.
State of Jharkhand (2011) 3 SCC 654
Bipin Kumar Mondal v.
State of West Bengal (2010) 12 SCC 91.
On the facts of the case the court noted following points:
(i) Mere fact that PW 1 Hamid, PW 2 Rafique are son and
brother of the deceased, that itself is not a ground to disbelieve their
evidence, [The court noted following case laws: Brathi v. State of Punjab
(1991) 1 SCC 519, Jammu and Kashmir v. S. Mohan Singh and another (2006) 9 SCC
272, Shyamal Ghosh v. State of West Bengal (2012) 7 SCC 646]
(ii) PW 3, Kailash Chandra who is a co-villager of the
informant and he fully corroborated the testimony of other witnesses regarding
the part played by the three accused persons in the commission of crime,
(iii) Nothing could be brought out in the cross-examination to
discredit the statement of PW1, PW2, PW3.
On High Court re-appreciating the oral and documentary
evidence, the Court held that:
“We are of the view that
the High Court has correctly appreciated the oral and documentary evidence,
including the evidence of PW6, the Chief Medical Officer and rightly came to
the conclusion that the trial court had committed an error in discarding their
evidence”. [Para 10]
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