"Ring Of Truth" : Supreme Court Lays Down Principles For Appreciation Of Ocular Evidence In Criminal Case

The Supreme Court, in a judgment delivered in a criminal appeal, laid down principles for appreciation of ocular evidence in a criminal case.

In assessing the value of the evidence of the eyewitnesses, two principal considerations are (1) whether, in the circumstances of the case, it is possible to believe their presence at the scene of occurrence or in such situations as would make it possible for them to witness the facts deposed to by them and (2) whether there is anything inherently improbable or unreliable in their evidence, the bench comprising Justices  Surya Kant and JB Pardiwala observed.

The court laid down the following principles while dismissing an appeal filed by a murder convict, whose conviction under Section 302 IPC was upheld by the Bombay High Court. One of the contentions raised by the appellant was that the eye witnesses in this case are unreliable witnesses.

1.  While appreciating the evidence of a witness, the approach must be whether the evidence of the witness 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 witness and whether the earlier evaluation of the evidence is shaken as to render it unworthy of belief.
2. If the Court before whom the witness gives evidence had the opportunity to  form the opinion about the general tenor of evidence given by the witness, the appellate court which had not this benefit will have to attach due weight to the appreciation of evidence by the trial court and unless there are reasons weighty and formidable it would not be proper to reject the evidence on the ground of minor variations or infirmities in the matter of trivial details.
3. When eye-witness is examined at length it is quite possible for him to make some discrepancies. But courts should bear in mind that it is only when discrepancies in the evidence of a witness are so incompatible with the credibility of his version that the court is justified in jettisoning his evidence.
4. Minor discrepancies on trivial matters not touching the core of the case, hyper technical approach by taking sentences torn out of context here or there from the evidence, attaching importance to some technical error committed by the investigating officer not going to the root of the matter would not ordinarily permit rejection of the evidence as a whole.
5. Too serious a view to be adopted on mere variations falling in the narration of an incident (either as between the evidence of two witnesses or as between two statements of the same witness) is an unrealistic approach for judicial scrutiny.
6. By and large a witness cannot be expected to possess a photographic memory and to recall the details of an incident. It is not as if a video tape is  replayed on the mental screen.
7. Ordinarily it so happens that a witness is overtaken by events. The witness could not have anticipated the occurrence which so often has an element of surprise. The mental faculties therefore cannot be expected to be attuned to absorb the details.
8. The powers of observation differ from person to person. What one may notice, another may not. An object or movement might emboss its image on one person's mind whereas it might go unnoticed on the part of another.
9. By and large people cannot accurately recall a conversation and reproduce the very words used by them or heard by them. They can only recall the main purport of the conversation. It is unrealistic to expect a witness to be a human tape recorder.
10. In regard to exact time of an incident, or the time duration of an occurrence, usually, people make their estimates by guess work on the spur of the moment at the time of interrogation. And one cannot expect people to make very precise or reliable estimates in such matters. Again, it depends on the time-sense of individuals which varies from person to person.
11. Ordinarily a witness cannot be expected to recall accurately the sequence of events which take place in rapid succession or in a short time span. A witness is liable to get confused, or mixed up when interrogated later on.
12. A witness, though wholly truthful, is liable to be overawed by the court  atmosphere and the piercing cross examination by counsel and out of nervousness mix up facts, get confused regarding sequence of events, or fill up details from imagination on the spur of the moment. The subconscious mind of the witness sometimes so operates on account of the fear of looking foolish or being disbelieved though the witness is giving a truthful and honest account of the occurrence witnessed by him.
13. A former statement though seemingly inconsistent with the evidence need not necessarily be sufficient to amount to contradiction. Unless the former statement has the potency to discredit the later statement, even if the later statement is at variance with the former to some extent it would not be helpful to contradict that witness.
14. To put it simply, in assessing the value of the evidence of the eyewitnesses, two principal considerations are whether, in the circumstances of the case, it is possible to believe their presence at the scene of occurrence or in such situations as would make it possible for them to witness the facts deposed to by them and secondly, whether there is anything inherently improbable or unreliable in their evidence. In respect of both these considerations, the circumstances either elicited from those witnesses themselves or established by other evidence tending to improbabilise their presence or to discredit the veracity of their statements, will have a bearing upon the value which a Court would attach to their evidence.
15. Although in cases where the plea of the accused is a mere denial, yet the evidence of the prosecution witnesses has to be examined on its own merits, where the accused raise a definite plea or puts forward a positive case which is inconsistent with that of the prosecution, the nature of such plea or case and the probabilities in respect of it will also have to be taken into account while assessing the value of the prosecution evidence. 

Applying these principles to the facts of the case, the bench held that both the courts rightly believed the two eye witnesses. "There is nothing palpable or glaring in the evidence of the two eye-witnesses on the basis of which we can take the view that they are not true or reliable eye-witnesses. Few contradictions in the form of omissions here or there is not sufficient to discard the entire evidence of the eye-witnesses.", the court said.

The bench also rejected other contentions raised by the accused and dismissed the appeal.

Headnotes

Shahaja @ Shahajan Ismail Mohd. Shaikh vs State Of Maharashtra | 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 596 | CrA  739 OF 2017 | 14 July 2022

Coram: Justices Surya Kant and JB Pardiwala

Headnotes

Indian Evidence Act, 1872 - Ocular Evidence - Principles for appreciation of ocular evidence in a criminal case - In assessing the value of the evidence of the eyewitnesses, two principal considerations are whether, in the circumstances of the case, it is possible to believe their presence at the scene of occurrence or in such situations as would make it possible for them to witness the facts deposed to by them and secondly, whether there is anything inherently improbable or unreliable in their evidence. In respect of both these considerations, the circumstances either elicited from those witnesses themselves or established by other evidence tending to improbabilise their presence or to discredit the veracity of their statements, will have a bearing upon the value which a Court would attach to their evidence. (Para 27-28)

Indian Evidence Act, 1872 ; Section 27 - Conditions necessary for the applicability of Section 27 of the Act - (1) Discovery of fact in consequence of an information received from accused; (2) Discovery of such fact to be deposed to; (3) The accused must be in police custody when he gave informations and (4) So much of information as relates distinctly to the fact thereby discovered is admissible - Two conditions for application – (1) information must be such as has caused discovery of the fact; and (2) information must relate distinctly to the fact discovered. - Referred to Mohmed Inayatullah vs The State of Maharashtra: AIR (1976) SC 483 and Kirshnappa vs State Of Karnataka : AIR (1983) SC 446. (Para 42)

Indian Evidence Act, 1872 ; Section 27 - Mere discovery cannot be interpreted as sufficient to infer authorship of concealment by the person who discovered the weapon. He could have derived knowledge of the existence of that weapon at the place through some other source also. He could have derived knowledge of the existence of that weapon at the place through some other source also. He might have even seen somebody concealing the weapon, and, therefore, it cannot be presumed or inferred that because a person discovered the weapon, he was the person who had concealed it, least it can be presumed that he used it. - Referred to Dudh Nath Pandey v. State of U. P., AIR (1981) SC 911 (Para 45-46) 

Indian Evidence Act, 1872 ; Section 8,27 - Even while discarding the evidence in the form of discovery panchnama the conduct would be relevant under Section 8 of the Act. The evidence of discovery would be admissible as conduct under Section 8 of the Act quite apart from the admissibility of the disclosure statement under Section 27. (Para 48)

Indian Evidence Act, 1872 ; Section 8 - The conduct of the accused alone, though may be relevant under Section 8 of the Act, cannot form the basis of conviction. (Para 50)

Constitution of India, 1950 ; Article 136 - Criminal Appeals - (i) The powers of this Court under Article 136 of the Constitution are very wide but in criminal appeals this Court does not interfere with the concurrent findings of fact save in exceptional circumstances. (ii) It is open to this Court to interfere with the findings of fact recorded by the High Court if the High Court has acted perversely or otherwise improperly. (iii) It is open to this Court to invoke the power under Article 136 only in very exceptional circumstances as and when a question of law of general public importance arises or a decision shocks the conscience of the Court. (iv) When the evidence adduced by the prosecution falls short of the test of reliability and acceptability and as such it is highly unsafe to act upon it. (v) Where the appreciation of evidence and finding is vitiated by any error of law of procedure or found contrary to the principles of natural justice, errors of record and misreading of the evidence, or where the conclusions of the High Court are manifestly perverse and unsupportable from the evidence on record. (Para 23)

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