High Court of Delhi in a peculiar case, in which the conviction, of the appellants, rests entirely on the testimony of a sole eye-witness and there is no supportive medico-legal or forensic evidence, no other eyewitnesses to the incident, or, even if there were, they have not been co-opted as witnesses by the prosecution, no supporting circumstantial evidence, said “Seeing is believing, and, therefore, the evidence of an eyewitness, if credible, constitutes, needless to say, the best possible evidence. There is wealth of judicial authority for the proposition that conviction may rest on the sole testimony of an eyewitness, sans any other evidence, provided, always, the evidence of the eyewitness is absolutely credible.”
High Court further stated that,
“As the value of evidence increases, however, so does the rigour and strictness of the scrutiny to which the evidence is required to be subjected. While, therefore, upholding the principle that conviction can rest on the sole testimony of an eye-witness, without any supportive evidence whatsoever, the Supreme Court has, been at pains to also hold that, in all such cases, the credibility of the evidence of the eye-witness is required to be conclusively established. For this, the court is required to assess, among other things, the evidence of the eye-witness, as tendered during investigation, when compared with his evidence during trial, and to examine whether the evidence, tendered during trial, is cogent and coherent, and free from any disabling inconsistencies, as well as the extent to which the evidence of the eyewitness is consistent with the evidence of other witnesses, tendered during trial. While embarking on this exercise, needless to say, the court is required to be mindful of the distinction between minor and major inconsistencies, and may only take cognizance of those inconsistencies which dent the case of the prosecution. At the same time, inconsistencies, even if minor, may, if they are sufficiently large in number, substantially weaken the credibility of the testimony of the witness concerned”.
Facts of the case were that the appellants had a fight with the deceased during which the deceased was stabbed in abdomen which led to his death in which Prosecution witness- Umesh was the sole eye-witness of the incident.
High Court bench comprising of Justice C. Hari Shankar and Justice Siddharth Mridul held that due to the two most important features of the testimony of PW Umesh Singh during trial, which militate against treating the sole testimony as sufficient to maintain the conviction of the appellants, are the presence of the neighbours at the crime spot who were not examined, and the position which was found by the Police when they arrived at the scene. Therefore, the appellants were acquitted of the charges against them.
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