Testimony Of Injured Witness Can Be Relied Upon Unless There Are Major Contradictions: Rajasthan High Court

The Rajasthan High Court has reiterated that the testimony of an injured witness cannot be discarded merely because of minor discrepancies since he is not likely to spare the actual assailant in order to falsely implicate someone else.

The bench of Justice Sudesh Bansal thus observed that the testimony of an injured witness is accorded a special status in law and it cannot be rejected unless there are major discrepancies or contradictions.

In this case, the victim was a rival of the two accused and alleged that the latter brutally stabbed him. Since the Sessions Court convicted the duo for offences under Section 307 (attempt to murder) read with Section 34 IPC, the present appeal was preferred.

Counsel for the accused contended that there were contradictions and discrepancies in the statements of the complainant. It was further argued that accused were implicated by the complainant merely because of the rivalry between the parties. Hence, in light of these two facts, the evidence of the complainant was not reliable. In the alternate, accused sought to be released on probation under Section 4 of the Probation of Offenders Act 1958.

After hearing both the sides, the Court stated that the prosecution case mainly relied on the statements of the victim-complainant. It then took note of the case of Indra Devi v State of Himachal Pradesh in which it was stated that an injured witness must be subjected to careful scrutiny if the circumstances suggested a possibility of false implication on account of enmity. Court also referred to the Supreme Court case of State of U.P. v Naresh in which it was observed that mere contradictions on trivial matters could not render the statement untrustworthy and the evidence of an injured witness must be given due weightage unless there are major contradictions and discrepancies therein.

Juxtaposing these two cases, the Court observed that in the former case, there were major contradictions in the statements of the injured. However, in the present case, the contradictions and discrepancies in the evidence of the complainant were not so serious so as to render his testimony unreliable. The Court also held that enmity was a double edged weapon that both the parties had tried to use to make their case. However, given the overall facts and circumstances, it lent more support to the case of prosecution than demolishing the same. Thus, the Court found no illegality in due weightage been given to the evidence of the complainant by the Sessions Court. The conviction of the accused under Section 307 was thus upheld.

Moving forward to the prayer of probation, the Court observed that the power to release the accused on probation could be exercised by the appellant court only when it was expedient to do so. It referred to the Supreme Court case of Mohd. Hashim v State of UP in which the word 'expedient' was explained. The case ruled that even though many meanings could be attributed to it, the court needed to construe its meaning giving the object of the provision its widest amplitude. It further stated that Section 4 of the Act cast a duty on the court to consider circumstances of the case including the nature of offence and form an opinion on whether the same was appropriate for releasing the offender on probation. After referring to other judgments wherein the offenders were released on probation and the factors given by the counsel of the accused for supporting his prayer, the Court granted the request and observed the following:

“Court deems it just and proper that instead of sending appellants to suffer incarceration for remaining period of jail sentence, it would be expedient to grant the benefit of probation to accused-appellants but simultaneously an additional fine of Rs.50,000/- on appellants is imposed which shall be payable as compensation to the victim.”

Hence, the appeal was partly allowed where the conviction of both the accused under Section 307, IPC was upheld but they were release on probation under Section 4 of the Act.

Title: Munna and Anr. v State of Rajasthan

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Raj) 107

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