Rohtash Kumar vs. State of Haryana,
Criminal Appeal No. 896 of 2011, Decided on May 29, 2013
“It is a
settled legal proposition that while appreciating the evidence of a witness,
minor discrepancies on trivial matters which do not affect the core of the case
of the prosecution, must not prompt the court to reject the evidence in its
entirety. Therefore, unless irrelevant details which do not in any way corrode
the credibility of a witness should be ignored. The court has to examine
whether evidence read as a whole appears to have a ring of truth. Once that
impression is formed, it is undoubtedly necessary for the court to scrutinize
the evidence more particularly keeping in view the deficiencies, drawbacks and
infirmities pointed out in the evidence as a whole and evaluate them to find
out whether it is against the general tenor of the evidence given by the
witnesses and whether the earlier evaluation of the evidence is shaken, as to
render it unworthy of belief. Thus, the court is not supposed to give undue
importance to omissions, contradictions and discrepancies which do not go to
the heart of the matter, and shake the basic version of the prosecution
witness. Thus, the court must read the evidence of a witness as a whole, and
consider the case in light of the entirety of the circumstances, ignoring the minor
discrepancies with respect to trivial matters, which do not affect the core of
the case of the prosecution”. [Para 18]
On
the facts of the case the court observed:
“We have examined the aforesaid discrepancies
pointed out by the learned counsel. It may be stated herein that some of the
issues have been explained by the prosecution, however, no attempt was ever
made by the defence to put most of these issues to SI Vinod Kumar (PW.20), the
Investigating Officer in his cross-examination. It is evident from his deposition
that he had, in fact, answered all the questions that were put to him in the
cross-examination. However, it is pertinent to clarify that most of these
questions that are being currently raised before us were not put to him. For
example, he has explained that nobody from the said market had been ready to
become the Panch witness for recovery of the mobile phone from Sonu’s shop at
Itarsi, and that even Sonu was not ready to do so. Further, no question had
been put to him in the cross-examination regarding the different EMEI number of
the said mobile phone. The mobile phone that was recovered, bore the EMEI No.
3534000004033852 (Ex.P-19), though the EMEI number of mobile phone that
belonged to Sonia was 3534000004033853. Furthermore, no question had been put
as to why the mobile phone, after the recovery, had not been deposited in the
Malkhana. In light of such a fact situation, it is not permissible for us to
consider such discrepancies. So far as the inconsistencies in the depositions
of the witnesses are concerned, none of them can be held to be material
inconsistency”. [Para 19]
The
Court also referred following case laws:
State of U.P. v. M.K.
Anthony, AIR 1985 SC
48
State rep. by Inspector of
Police v. Saravanan & Anr., AIR 2009 SC 152
Vijay @ Chinee v. State of M.P., (2010) 8 SCC 191
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text follow the link:
http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=40444